


myeongok (a dream-song) 2: London, 2014/15

by forochel



Series: chun/myeon/gok [2]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Food, Gen, Lack of Communication, London, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Modern Royalty, Noble Stupidity, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26623783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: year 2 of the london years.Friendships deepen! Everyone learns a little more about each other! Life crises are had! An understanding (several understandings) develop! Younghyun dares, just in time for Reality Checks to arrive on scene! Wonpil quietly makes a decision! Nobody actually talks about their feelings ever!-prequel to bysine'schunmyeongok: Younghyun spoke of London very little but always with an odd look on his face, like he was holding back a lot of feelings.'
Relationships: Kang Younghyun | Young K & Yoon Dowoon, Kang Younghyun | Young K/Kim Wonpil, Kim Wonpil & Park Jinyoung (GOT7)
Series: chun/myeon/gok [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1936813
Comments: 58
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [chunmyeongok (a dream-song of spring)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597997) by [bysine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bysine/pseuds/bysine). 



> There are about four more instalments (my ... stamina ... willing) to go in this, the precious five (5) people who might actually be reading this. The slow burn tag is for real. 
> 
> Alsowik, Jae will show up next year. 
> 
> & my eternal gratitude to bysine for being such a baller cheer-reader.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yakitori, banter, learning more about each other, etc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished writing this chapter so long ago I had to reread it to remember what happened.

* * *

Second year came roaring out of the gate.

It was as though their instructors and London itself were saying "Well, you've had an entire year to get used to this —"

And so, into the deep end.

Time was whizzing by, it seemed, in an endless rush of lectures and tutorials and embassy meetings and essays and diplomatic events and increasingly difficult maths. This murky swirl was punctuated at uneven intervals by things that Younghyun would unfold from his memory years later, precious keepsakes of a time in his life unlike any other.

*

It was a blustery Thursday evening when they went to a tiny Japanese place somewhere in Oval. It had a _binchotan_ , an exclusive import licence on a particular brewery's _shochu_ all the way from Kyushu, and had narrowly avoided a Michelin star by closing unexpectedly and suddenly on the day that the inspector had been rumoured to want to drop in.

All this, conveyed by Sungjin-hyung over raclette on toast at Borough Market on one of Younghyun's off-duty days; he had been there with a Japanese coursemate just the week before; said coursemate's flatmate worked there part-time as a waitress.

"Sungjin-hyung said that the owner had a bad back day," Younghyun shared whilst they waited for their orders. They had been sat where the counter curved around to meet the wall — Dowoon in the corner, then Wonpil in the middle, and Younghyun with an eye on the door on the far end of the oblong dining area.

"How convenient," said Wonpil, peeling off a slice of the pickled _daikon_ appetiser.

Gesturing for Wonpil to slide the dish over, Dowoon nodded. "Very. We hardly had any trouble making a reservation."

Wonpil snorted. "As if you would."

"Oh, you'd be surprised." Younghyun leaned back to let Sungjin-hyung's coursemate's flatmate put a large bowl of salad on the little serving ledge that overhung the dining counter. "Thanks, Tsubame-noona."

"It's so weird that you're mixing the two languages like that," said Tsubame. "Sungjin does the same thing."

"You _are_ older than us."

"I try to forget about that," she said drily and nodded at Wonpil and Dowoon with blessedly no recognition whatsoever. "Enjoy the complimentary salad, lads."

After she had left, Wonpil helped himself to some salad, topped by some deliciously mysterious crispy shreds of daikon. He pushed the bowl over to Dowoon. "What would I be surprised by?"

"The ... uh ..." Younghyun trailed off, searching for the most diplomatic words possible. He was highly aware that they were seated right in front of the locus of action itself, and Nakata-sensei himself was _right there_ supervising the slow turning of their duck fillet over white hot coals. "Steadfast nature of Japanese tradition."

"Steadfast," repeated Wonpil drily. He looked at Dowoon, who was happily hoovering up salad. "Right."

"It helped, in Kyoto," said Younghyun, finally getting the salad bowl to himself, "that the Palace was doing the reservations for us."

"Fucking hell," said Wonpil with feeling. "I'm bringing you with me when I finally get over to that side of the world."

"Not worth it, hyung," Dowoon said with his mouth egregiously full. "They will make you speed through the manga museum."

"Don't talk with your mouth full, Dowoonie," Wonpil said absently, right as their first few orders of _yakimono_ appeared on the serving ledge: chicken skin, breast cartilage, chewy hearts, and fragrant asparagus wrapped in good English bacon.

"We'll send you pictures." Wonpil lifted the plates down together with Younghyun — the cartilage was for Dowoon, the hearts for Younghyun. "To say that we're thinking fondly of you, et cetera."

"I don't get a say in this?" Younghyun said drily, sliding a serving of skin off a skewer and dipping it in the waiting dish of ponzu. "And I don't exactly rate Palace reservations without our friend down the end, there."

Magnanimously, around a mouthful of cartilage and masticated cabbage, Dowoon said, "We'll make special dispensations for you, _hyung-deul_."

"Close your mouth, Dowoon-ah," Younghyun found himself saying at the same time as Wonpil.

Swallowing with some difficulty, Dowoon muttered to himself, "No appreciation."

"Aigoo," Wonpil cooed in a way he must have learnt from his grandmother, flinging his arms around Dowoon. No dignity for Corean royalty in Oval, apparently. "Dowoon-ah, are you feeling unappreciated? Can hyung make you feel any better?"

Hauling him fully back onto his stool, Younghyun hissed, "You haven't had any sake."

"I'm offended that you think I need drinks to be like this, Kang Younghyun."

"Wonpil-ah, just eat your food before it gets cold."

"I think hyung wants a hug too," said Dowoon, who had apparently communed with the imp of mischief this evening.

"Do you?" Wonpil inquired, but the moment he met Younghyun's eyes he went pink and looked away, which made _Younghyun_ feel warm all over himself.

Younghyun was saved, thankfully, by Nakata-sensei himself sliding more dishes over: three whole plates of chicken thighs sourced from various small farms across the British Isles, wings, and quail eggs for Wonpil. There was apparently some sort of lull in the grilling, because Nakata-sensei struck up a friendly conversation, asking where and what they were studying, and how long they'd been in London, and upon finding out that Wonpil and Dowoon were cousins, proceeded to go on at length about the value of family and how they must take care of each other.

"Sensei," said his sous chef at his elbow eventually, "we have more orders."

"And apparently," Younghyun murmured to his skewer of chicken thighs when Nakata-sensei had turned away, "I'm chopped liver."

He apparently hadn't been quiet enough; Wonpil, overhearing him, let out a hiccup of laughter. He clapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wide over his cupped hand and looking around the room in embarrassment.

"You're very important chopped liver, hyung," he said once he had been satisfied that nobody was looking.

"They have chopped liver?" Dowoon looked up from where he'd been picking a wing clean.

Younghyun couldn't help but laugh; Wonpil, easily tickled at all times, started giggling too.

"What?" Dowoon's eyes went round with offence. "What's so funny? Hyung!"

"You're so cute, Dowoonie," Wonpil cooed, though this time he didn't lunge for him.

Rolling his eyes, Dowoon turned back to his food and mumbled deprecatory things about hyungs who found him cute under his breath.

"Isn't he cute, though?" Wonpil turned and demanded, before going palpably shy all over. With an embarrassed smile, he picked up a skewer of his quail eggs and dipped it in his little dish of _yuzu-kosho_ , concentrating on coating his egg evenly. "Why are you — what's with that look on your face?"

Younghyun blinked. Catching his reflection in the glass separating the counter from the kitchen, he realised that the swelling fondness in his chest had spilt out onto his face.

"Uh." He coughed into a fist and reached past Wonpil to pull the salad bowl over. "Nothing? It's just — nice. Nakata-sensei's right, I suppose. About you two being cousins. You're good with Dowoonie. For him." Feeling a little as though he might have said too much, Younghyun forked a huge cluster of salad into his mouth.

When he chanced a glance at Wonpil mid-chew, he found Wonpil looking a little surprised and pleased.

"High praise, coming from you," he murmured, smiling a private, warm thing.

Behind him, Dowoon was ignoring everything happening around him and savouring the last of his plate of chicken thighs.

"Because I've been ... shadowing him for so long?"

Wonpil shook his head, that smile still softening the sharp angles of his cheekbones. "No, because you're his oldest friend."

Now it was Younghyun's turn to be surprised and pleased.

"Dowoonie has told me stories, you know." Wonpil started in on the skewer of chicken wings that had been portioned off for him.

"Stories." Foreboding started creeping up Younghyun's spine.

"Yes, stories." Wonpil flicked a mischievously knowing look at Younghyun, smile widening. "There's one, for example, about how you tried taking him home with you, when you'd first been introduced."

"Oh _god_ ," Younghyun groaned, and had to look away to compose himself. "You know, that story might be apocryphal. How would _he_ know?"

"Lady Noh told me," said Dowoon, who'd honed the skill of strategically paying attention at the most opportune moments over the years. "Can we order more food?"

Wonpil handed Dowoon the menu without taking his eyes off Younghyun. They had curved a little with amusement, and there was still that softness to his face that made Younghyun's insides feel like they were flip-flopping. "I think it's cute. Little three-year-old Younghyunie-hyung's very first kidnapping attempt."

"I was a big toddler," he muttered, ducking his head. His cheeks felt much too warm. Coughing, he said, "Do you want more food too?"

To his dismay, Wonpil just laughed, eyes dancing, before taking pity on him. "I could do with some more of that skin, yeah."

So they put in a massive round of orders, Tsubame-noona stopping by with her notepad, and focussed on decimating what they had so far. The food kept on coming: a grilled duck breast; _tsukune_ ; more _tebasaki_ ; more of Dowoon's cartilage and crispy skin for Wonpil; more of the truly excellent Cornish chicken thighs for Younghyun.

"I'm so full," moaned Wonpil, leaning back against the low back of his stool and placing his hands on his belly. "But this looks so good."

The bamboo holders bristled with forests of discarded skewers, and Nakata-sensei had sent them a service dish of some sort of flaky white fish, grilled over the white-hot charcoal, somewhere in the parade of food.

"Just try a bit," Younghyun urged, plucking up some slivers to taste. "It looks _so good_." And it was: juicy, sweet, firm flesh that tasted fresh, like it had been caught that morning. He put a few morsels on Wonpil's plate before he could protest, before sliding the dish on down to Dowoon.

Wonpil finished first, sinking down a little in his seat with a hand on his abdomen and the other clutching his tea.

"Are you okay?" Younghyun asked in amusement, even as he worked his way methodically through his second-last skewer.

"I think so. Is this what being pregnant feels like?"

He couldn't help the bark of laughter, or the way he couldn't stop the snickers when Wonpil turned to him with an open mouth. He shook his head helplessly, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth as he leaned against the counter.

"Oh god," he gasped, "don't do that, Wonpil-ah, you'll give me indigestion."

"Well," said Wonpil archly, a smile playing about his lips, "that certainly isn't what being pregnant feels like." He paused. "Maybe."

"Maybe," he echoed. Eyes catching on a tray being carried to a neighbouring table, he asked, "Hey, have you ever had _yaki-onigiri_?"

"Yaki-what?"

"Oh, hyung," Dowoon said with great feeling, "you have to try this."

But Tsubame-noona was nowhere to be flagged down, so Younghyun settled on the simple expedience of leaning forward and catching Nakata-sensei's eye through the glass. He had come to be very fond of them over the time they'd spent in front of his grill, eating their way through the menu. But he was busy, and so deputised a sous chef to see what they wanted.

It transpired that said chef was not very fluent in English and very apologetic on top of it, so Younghyun switched into Japanese and placed their orders — then had to go through the whole 'ah, wow, your Japanese is so good!' song and dance whilst the mochi and onigiri took their places atop the grill.

Satisfied that their orders would come through, he sat back and then discovered Wonpil staring at him.

"...yes?"

"What," demanded Wonpil, "was that?"

"Me ... ordering food for us?"

"You speak Japanese!"

"Oh, well," said Younghyun, "not very fluently. Dowoonie does too."

"How has it taken _this long_ for me to know this about you two?" Wonpil looked betrayed. "How many others do you speak? This is ridiculous!"

The interrogation went on ("and I was so proud of my Corean! And that bit of GCSE French!") until Nakata-sensei, with his keen sense of timing, slid across three little dishes upon which sat one plump, pillowy mochi each, golden-brown all over and fragrant.

"Try this, Wonpil-ah," Younghyun cut in mid-grumble, "but be careful, it's hot."

A dastardly scheme, perhaps, because then Wonpil was occupied with trying to section off his mochi and letting out the steam, then with chewing on the hot, sticky mochi.

"I had lessons from an early age," explained Dowoon, whilst Wonpil and Younghyun were busy chewing. "And I suppose hyung was just ... collateral ... benefit?"

Wonpil made an incomprehensible noise, before swallowing with some difficulty. "I'll say!"

But he pushed the rest of his mochi over to Younghyun, and let him have half of his yaki-onigiri, which had been grilled to perfect even crispness all over on the outside, so it was all right.

*

"Dowoonie's never explained — how did you end up growing up together?" Wonpil asked one lazy evening a few days later. Or, as Younghyun overheard him telling Jinyoung earlier, before Jinyoung had left to go watch a friend's play — _he_ was having a lazy evening. Dowoon was "doing King things" and Younghyun was "doing Royal Guard things".

"Oh, it was our fathers," said Younghyun absently, doing "mysterious things" on "that tablet of his" that was "probably custom-made for the palace", Wonpil had loudly decided whilst complaining about being unable to snoop. "My father was part of the Royal Guard— "

"--was?" Wonpil sat up.

"Oh. Oh, no, no, I just mean — he retired recently."

"Goodness," said Wonpil. "I'm not sure if _my_ dad ever intends to retire."

" _Abeonim_ must enjoy his work very much."

"He's an accountant," Wonpil deadpanned.

Across the fireplace, Dowoon looked up from whatever he was perusing in the reading chair. "Accountants do important things."

"I didn't say it wasn't important," countered Wonpil. " _Appa_ does financial controls or something. I don't really understand it, but it looks dead boring to me."

"It's sort of like ... checking to make sure everyone's got the right reporting processes in place —" Younghyun stopped at the sight of Wonpil's eyes glazing over and snorted. "Right, never mind."

"That's not what you do, though, is it?"

"Not at all."

"Still've got all those numbers though."

Younghyun heaved a heavy sigh. "I do my best to avoid the optional modules that are really numbers heavy."

Wonpil giggled and rearranged himself so he was lying on his belly and could try peering at the tablet in Younghyun's lap again. An exercise in futility, if there ever were one. All security hardware were equipped with privacy filters.

"Are you going to have to use them in the ... in your job?"

"I hope not," said Younghyun. "Though I suppose analytical thinking applies no matter what you do."

"Did your dad have to go to university as well?" Wonpil asked. "He was a captain, wasn't he?"

His eyes had drifted shut when Younghyun looked at him, and amber light from the drop lamp overhead was caught in his eyelashes. He looked half-asleep, guileless and idly curious.

"Yeah," said Younghyun quietly. "He was. But no, he was not ... not part of the team assigned to _daewang_ 's university detail. My father's captaincy came ... later."

"After some sort of heroic rescue, no doubt," Wonpil said, smiling up at him.

Younghyun paused, and glanced quickly up at Dowoon. He knew, from certain things Wonpil'd said before, that Wonpil had found that bloody article; and no doubt Buyeong-daegun must have told him at least a little of their family tragedy. Wonpil had been twelve, then. But as to the part Younghyun's own family had had in that — that, he was less sure of.

From where he was tucked into the armchair, Dowoon blinked back at him, unruffled.

"Not really," Younghyun said, looking back down into his lap. "Not when it counted, anyway."

At this, Dowoon stirred. "Hyung, no." There was a frown in his voice.

By Younghyun's hip, Wonpil was quiet and still. Younghyun didn't dare look at him.

"You can't possibly blame—" Dowoon went on.

"No!" Younghyun met Dowoon's imploring stare head-on. "No, of course not. But you know that's why — when my father came back —" he faltered, because Wonpil had touched his elbow, timid and fleeting.

"I'm sorry," Wonpil said softly. "I didn't think."

"Sungsoo- _samchon_ has always looked after me really well anyway," Dowoon said stubbornly. "Until he retired."

Unwilling to have this out again in front of Wonpil, Younghyun unlocked his tablet. "Mmm. I'm not contesting that."

Scrambling up to sit on his haunches, Wonpil said brightly with some effort, "It sounds to me like he's always looked after Dowoonie well. He introduced you two, after all."

"Oh, that." Younghyun tapped on the last email from Lt. Choi. "Apparently the nursery had to close unexpectedly that day and _eomma_ was on a business trip, so _abeoji_ had to take me to work."

"And then you tried to make off with the crown prince of Corea."

"He just _sat on me_!" protested Younghyun. "And Dowoon wasn't the crown prince _yet_."

" _Abeonim_ probably never thought he'd have to save Dowoonie from his own son," Wonpil laughed. "Wanted posters up throughout the kingdom: toddler at large!"

Younghyun couldn't help huff out a laugh too.

"I think the adults decided we may as well be friends, then," Dowoon contributed. "I don't know. Hyung's just always been around. I ..." he paused. "I am grateful."

Younghyun froze, unsure of how to react. "Um."

"Oh, hyung. Oh, Dowoonie," sighed Wonpil and walked on his knees over to Dowoon, but not before giving Younghyun a quick side-hug. "Shove over, I'm going to aggressively cuddle you now."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello thank you if you are still putting up with this; we have a long way to go still. Because ... at first it started out as self-indulgence but now this is an ALBATROSS around MY NECK.
> 
> anyway, if you enjoyed/felt hungry/had a feeling, please kudos, let me know what you thought in the comments, and [give this a retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1309646127441096705), thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet the parents (Chuseok edition). 
> 
> Also: Wonpil is charmingly sweet, serious heart-to-hearts in the car (but not about what we'd all REALLY like them to talk about), CHUSEOK FEASTING!!!!, and the introduction of The Crux Of The Matter ... the reason this has a slow burn tag.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't plan it this way but it's delightfully fitting that I'm posting this chapter ON chuseok/mid-autumn festival!

Chuseok came on the cusp of October and brought with it Younghyun's parents.

They had been hiking through the Dordogne Valley and were taking the train up from Paris after a week of living like flâneurs.

"Living the life," Jinyoung remarked, eyebrows raised.

"I think they deserve it," said Dowoon.

Younghyun looked at him, and the way Jinyoung had gone a little abashed. " _Appa_ 's definitely ... relaxed a lot since he retired."

"When was that, exactly?" Wonpil asked. "You never said."

Snorting, Younghyun smiled wryly. "When I came with _pyeha_ to London. He'd decided, I think, that my job prospects were safe then."

"That ..." Wonpil trailed off, frowning a little. "Really?"

"Amongst other reasons," admitted Younghyun, and bit into his pasty. Wonpil's grandparents had gone on a holiday to Cornwall and sent up a box of them with the skeleton security detail who'd been seconded to them from London.

"Is that air of mystery," asked Jinyoung in the tones of someone who didn't really expect an answer, "just to fuck with us or in service of some greater purpose?"

Feeling the corner of his mouth twitch up, Younghyun swallowed his mouthful of shortcrust pastry, juicy beef and radish. "Yes."

Wonpil gave him a look, before turning to Jinyoung. "It's personal."

"Oh, well, then why didn't he just _say so_ then."

"The first option," said Younghyun, and then laughed when Jinyoung sputtered with outrage.

In any case, Wonpil went along with Younghyun to go pick up the Kang parentals — sans Guard, who'd have to wait their turn to reunite with their old captain — because he'd been, according to him, in the area anyway.

"For historical research," explained Wonpil, as they waited anonymously in front of Arrivals. "At the BL. They've got manuscripts. All sorts of things."

"Hm." Younghyun'd only ever walked past the British Library before. It was a very boringly modern looking edifice, for an institution that was supposed to contain all this historical knowledge. "I thought that kind of thing would be in the ... the BM."

"Well, you know, that did use to be where the library was, and then they got moved out or something." Wonpil shrugged. "That round bit in the middle when you go in the front? On top of the museum shop? It used to be the reading room."

"...they did mention that during one of those gallery tours." Younghyun smiled a little at Wonpil's exasperated look. "The other stories were more interesting, and I've got to pay attention to more than just a curator's nattering on, you know."

" _Nattering_ ," repeated Wonpil, smiling back. "I think I'm infecting you."

"You, my coursemates, just ... everything." Younghyun waved a careless hand around the crowded concourse.

Far off in the distance, a bucket-hatted couple pushing along a trolley loaded down with two enormous backpacks and one (1) rolly case waved enthusiastically back.

"Ah!" The excitement that had lain dormant in his belly started unfurling. He jogged towards them, pulling Wonpil along by the elbow. "That's them!"

Wonpil laughed as he tripped to catch up. "They thought you were waving at them!"

"I would've anyway. This was just ... efficiency."

"Accidental efficiency."

"Efficiency nonetheless," Younghyun retorted, and shepherded Wonpil around a knot of air-kissing French people.

Then there his parents were — his parents whom he hadn't seen in over a year, who looked tanned and happy and —

"My son!" cried his mother, and fell upon him.

Younghyun was surprised all over again by how much smaller she was than him, though there was strength in the way she was squeezing him. His dad was holding onto the trolley with one hand, grinning at them, and Wonpil had disappeared from his side. Then his dad had joined them.

"Oof," Younghyun's mother said, taking a step back. " _Y_ _eobo_ , I told you that shirt needed to be washed."

Younghyun's dad sputtered and Younghyun laughed.

Then she turned to Wonpil, who had apparently taken over care of the luggage trolley, and been watching Younghyun be submerged in this tidal wave of parental affection with a soft-eyed little smile. "And who's _this_?"

"It's his housemate," answered Younghyun's dad before Younghyun could decide how to interpret that particular inflection in her question. "The cousin. Buyeong- _daegam_ 's grandson. Aren't you?"

"Well," said his mother a little waspishly, "I certainly didn't think he was _pyeha_. But he could be the other housemate."

Younghyun gave Wonpil a sheepish look.

"Ah—" Wonpil hesitated, caught between the desire to go forward and introduce himself, and the Londoner's instinct to have one hand on their possessions at all times. He settled for bobbing a little bow. "Yes, I'm Kim Wonpil; it's very nice to meet you."

"Oh, you speak Corean so well!" Younghyun's mother exclaimed, going over to him and accepting the hand he'd outstretched in response. "What a handsome boy. Good genes run in the family, eh?"

Wonpil went pink and ducked his head. "You're very kind, _eomonim_."

"And did our son drag you along?" Younghyun's dad said, unironically dragging Younghyun along with him to join the two of them.

"Oh, no, no!" Wonpil waved his free hand about. "I was just — just doing research nearby and thought I'd come say hello, you know. Keep hyung company."

"Aigoo," cooed Younghyun's mum, patting Wonpil's hand. "How sweet."

"Very polite," agreed Younghyun's dad.

"I suspect Wonpilie wanted a lift home too," Younghyun put in, trying not to be put out by being so quickly eclipsed by Wonpil's existence in his parents' affections.

"It's called efficiency." Wonpil pursed his lips and tipped his chin up.

Laughing, Younghyun shook his head and went round to take charge of the trolley. "Yeah, okay. Come on, the carpark's all the way on the other side of the station and the meter is running out."

"I remember when you liked riding on these trolleys," Younghyun's dad told him as they cut through the crowds to the carpark. He was smiling in fond memory when Younghyun glanced at him. "You used to make me push you up and down the halls in Busan Station and the airport."

"And the supermarket," Younghyun added, remembering a little of it. He'd been excited about going somewhere else, about being with _both_ his parents, and yes — about the trolley.

"You could get on again if you want," said his father, "and I could give a go of pushing you along."

" _Appa_ , please don't hurt your back."

"Excuse me, I've had a very active retirement, young man." His father gave him a beady look. "Have _you_ been keeping active?"

" _Yes_ ," Younghyun sighed, and detailed his training regimen before his father could interrogate further.

Behind them, Wonpil was walking along with Younghyun's mum, his hand still held captive. If Younghyun listened closely, he could hear snatches of their conversation through the general clamour on the concourse. But they seemed to be only talking about Wonpil's favourite places in London, and how to navigate the Underground.

Younghyun was in the middle of outlining the sparring sessions at the embassy when Wonpil came up and tapped him on the arm.

"Hyung," said Wonpil urgently, "your parents haven't got Oyster cards!"

"Oh, f—" Younghyun knew he'd forgotten to do something, what with everything else. "Okay, well, we — _I_ can go get them once we're at their hotel. Wait, where are you staying, _appa_?"

"Oh my god," Wonpil said, "you don't _know_?"

Younghyun spluttered, whilst his mum laughed.

"But he always knows!" Wonpil told his parents.

"Not this time," intoned Younghyun's father, before telling Younghyun the address.

Wonpil squinted at the printout that Younghyun's father had consulted. "That's not a hotel, is it?"

"No, it's a little bed and breakfast that a friend recommended."

Despite Younghyun's misgivings, the bed and breakfast turned out to be really quite nice and only a short drive away. It was a little building nestled off Lamb's Conduit Street and run by an old couple who'd apparently had it in the family for decades.

"It's nice," said Wonpil, "but might be a bit noisy at night, with the children's hospital nearby."

"Oh, we're all right with a bit of noise."

"Can't get away from the sirens in London, I'm afraid," said friendly old Jo, who'd set out a little tea service with thick slices of _bara brith_.

"Is this Christmas cake?" asked Younghyun's dad, sitting down with only a little groan.

"Welsh teacake," Jo told him, "very different. Me mam's from North Wales, and she taught me the recipe."

And so they walked up to Russell Square station to get Oyster cards for Younghyun's parents, who had sat down to tea and waved them away. Or, well, Wonpil had offered to get the cards and Younghyun's mother had exclaimed over what a kind boy he was and then Younghyun _definitely_ had to go with him, after that.

"Well," said Younghyun's dad when they returned and found Younghyun's parents in their room, "we'll see you for dinner later then?"

"It's like you don't want me around," Younghyun said.

Wonpil hid a quiet snort with a cough behind him, where he'd stayed in the corridor out of some overabundance of manners.

"Oh, don't sulk." Younghyun's mother pat his arm. "We'll have plenty of time together tomorrow. And tonight! Would Wonpilie like to come along?"

"Ah —" Wonpil slipped into the narrow space between Younghyun and the door. "Thank you for the invitation, _eomonim_ , but I have coursework to do."

"Of course! Well, we'll see you tomorrow then —" On Wonpil shaking his head, she frowned. "No?"

"I'm going home to eat with my family," he said a little apologetically. "It's only about an hour away by train, you see ..."

"Oh no, of course you must," Younghyun's mother said, whilst behind her Younghyun's father gave Wonpil an approving look, walked into the bathroom and shut the door. "We'll save _my_ dinner for the day after, then. I'll be invading your kitchen."

Wonpil laughed. "I look forward to it, _eomonim_."

With that, and a little more fuss about where they'd be having dinner ("Near Russell Square — oh, I'll come to walk you over, please just wait for me") and when, they left Younghyun's parents to nap.

They walked in silence back to the car, Younghyun feeling unaccountably nervous.

"Your parents are nice," Wonpil said, once Younghyun had navigated onto Theobald's Road. "Are you spending tomorrow with them?"

Younghyun nodded, the mystery nerves soothed all of a sudden. "I'm skipping my lecture and everyone else has agreed to cover me."

Wonpil's smile was audible in his voice. "That's good. I'm glad they're so nice."

"Well, I think they're also looking forward to seeing _appa_ again. Reuniting."

"Ah ... so they've got to make a good impression?"

"Yeah." Younghyun grimaced.

Wonpil reached out to fiddle with the radio, thoughtfully silent for a good long while. Traffic was being bizarrely good, and so they'd got onto Shaftesbury by the time Wonpil spoke again.

"You don't like that, hyung?"

Younghyun sighed. "It's just ... I don't want. I don't want them to do me favours because ..."

"Because of who your dad was."

He inhaled, let it hiss out long and low. "Yeah. I didn't —" He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, searching for the words. "I'm here because I've earned it."

"Of course you are!" Wonpil twisted in his seat at a red light; his eyes were wide with conviction that Younghyun still didn't really fully feel. "Hyung, you're _good_ at you what you do."

"Well —"

"— and don't say it's just because I don't know." Wonpil tugged emphatically at his sleeve. "Because I asked Eunsik-hyung" — Younghyun still had no idea when, how, or why Wonpil started addressing Sergeant Yoon so familiarly — "and he said so too; he said you were doing really well and everyone trusts you with Dowoonie."

Driving through one of the busiest parts of London was possibly not the best time to have a conversation like this.

Keeping his eyes on the road, Younghyun stuttered, "Why — When — I mean —" and promptly ran out of words.

"When I got his number last Easter," Wonpil said, understanding anyway, "and the house wasn't inundated with agents, I asked Eunsik-hyung why, because it's not like my parents' house has got a security system like ours ... and he said. Well, he said that."

There was a roaring sound in Younghyun's ears that _definitely_ wasn't from the ambient music channel Wonpil had chosen, because — well, Sergeant Yoon had seen him when he'd been embarrassingly green and wet behind the ears at sixteen. He had quite literally seen Younghyun mature through the tail end of his teenage years into ... into whatever he was, today. Whoever he was.

"Oh," he managed.

"So — so —" Wonpil continued, "don't. I mean, have faith in yourself, hyung. You're doing well."

He fell silent then, whilst Younghyun tried to cobble together his thoughts _and_ get them safely through the huge junction at Hyde Park Corner. There were always tourists who didn't seem to understand how traffic lights worked. A resonant, metallic sound like someone touching their wet fingertip to a metal bowl, except multiplied a dizzying number of times over, emanated from the radio.

"Thank you," he said at last, when pulling into the parking lot outside their house. "Wonpil-ah. Really, thank you."

*

On the second day of Chuseok, Younghyun's mother took over the house's kitchen after a lie-in and very hip brunch in Soho.

"Go for your lessons, son," his mother had said after a long day of trailing his parents all over London. They'd wanted to go to Kew, despite it being autumn and — because his parents were indefatigable walkers — then all the way up north to the Heath, with various other spots on his mother's list in between. Younghyun had driven them to the embassy after they'd watched the sun set from Parliament Hill, mildly exhausted and glad that nobody had to make dinner. Or sweep any restaurants, because they'd invited Dowoon along.

"The Crown isn't paying for you to skip lectures," his father had added over dessert.

"The Crown's paying for me to make sure _pyeha_ doesn't come to harm," Younghyun had muttered slightly rebelliously, having been looking forward to a lie-in.

"The Crown," murmured Dowoon to his _sujeonggwa_ , "does not want any part in this conversation."

And so Younghyun went blearily off to his morning lecture the next day along with Dowoon, and was thusly occupied on campus for the next six hours.

It was Jinyoung who'd let Younghyun's parents in, his parents having flown back to Corea for the occasion. He had also, uncharacteristically, been very serious about it all, asking for mugshots and a security agent to be around.

"Well, I hardly want to be tragically cut down in the flower of my youth," was what he'd said, but his eyes had cut to Dowoon. "I'm certainly not valuable enough to be taken hostage."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, Jinyoungie," Wonpil had said. "Of course you are."

Because Jinyoung was Jinyoung, and Younghyun was Younghyun, he'd just told Jinyoung, "You wouldn't die immediately, but you also wouldn't be worth as much as ... say, Wonpil- _daegam_."

On cue, the two of them had made faces, and then Jinyoung had pounced upon that detail and started interrogating Younghyun about the possibility of a security escort for Wonpil as well, and Wonpil had protested to no avail, before walking away to go play piano loudly.

It was very nice, Younghyun thought, to come home — to come home to _a_ home, with his parents' hiking boots lined up neatly in the vestibule and the smell of his mother's galbijim permeating the air.

His mother had made friends with the embassy cook the night before, of course — she had found her way into the kitchens and emerged triumphant with supplies ensured for the next day's dinner.

"What a nice woman," she'd beamed, "said she'd have some of the staff send over deliveries tomorrow morning. It's so nice to see a woman in charge of a professional kitchen."

Younghyun thought very quietly to himself that she and Wonpil's mother would probably get along terrifyingly well.

The embassy cook also, as it turned out when Younghyun made his way into the kitchen after changing into his home clothes, had sent along glass containers of leftover banchan from the night before and an entirely new box of _gujeolpan_ in a beautifully lacquered octagonal box, the _mugunghwa_ patterned lid inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

"Cook Oh is a treasure and a half," his mother told him, whilst smacking his hands away from the giant box of embassy _japchae_ , which Younghyun knew to be the perfect balance of salty and sweet, the _dangmyeon_ slippery with fragrant, cold-pressed sesame oil. She gave his dad a look. "Yah, do something about your son."

Younghyun's dad had been pressed into sous chef duties; he was currently stuffing perilla leaves with minced meat of some sort, in preparation for the onslaught of _jeon_ that was inevitable at _Chuseok_.

"Come help me split the _doraji_ , son," said his dad without looking up, gesturing at the bellflower roots soaking in a large white bowl Younghyun hadn't even known they had.

So he was sitting at the bench splitting the white strips of fibrous root into smaller ones with a paring knife when there was a burst of noise from upstairs, the squeak of the the upper kitchen door being pushed open, and then the _thump thump thump_ of someone in thick-soled furry slippers coming down the stairs.

Wonpil appeared in the doorway bearing two tupperware boxes in his arms, Jinyoung on his heels.

"Younghyun-hyung," said Jinyoung, who clearly selectively remembered honorifics in front of actual adults, "you'll _never_ guess what Wonpil's brought back from Reading!"

"...more kimchi?" Younghyun guessed — this was the primary thing that Wonpil added to their fridge whenever he or his sister visited their parents. "Other kinds of banchan?"

Wonpil gave him a smug grin and laid down his wares to reveal one box, which had been lined with parchment paper, full of colourful _songpyeon_ , and the other one full of _kkanpungi_ , glistening orange-red.

"No HP sauce?" Younghyun jested, to cover for the way his chest was feeling over-full.

Wonpil rolled his eyes.

Jinyoung laughed. "Uncle Junghoon is a terror with the HP sauce, isn't he?"

"I mean, the bacon sandwich was really good, but ..."

"My god, you survived it?"

"Dad's taken out the mayo from his recipe," Wonpil said. "His cholesterol. _Eomma_ insisted."

"That _would_ improve it."

"Remember when he experimented with marmite?"

"Wasn't that a punishment for getting drunk? I almost threw up."

"You like _Bovril_ , Jinyoungie."

Younghyun's dad was following their back and forth like he was at Wimbledon, distracted from cutting up the fiddlehead ferns.

"Their chemistry is something else," Younghyun's mother said to him when he trotted the glass boxes over to her. "Oh! _Songpyeon_ , how lovely. Please tell your mother thank you from me, Wonpil-ah."

"Of course, _eomonim_ ," Wonpil broke off in the middle of needling Jinyoung to smile at her.

"And ... fried chicken?"

"For Younghyun-hyung," said Wonpil guilelessly. "He liked it so much last time..."

"Goodness, specifically for our Younghyun?" Younghyun's dad said. "And what do you like?"

" _Gyeran-mari_ ," Younghyun cut into Wonpil's polite attempts to demur. "And _dubu_."

Which — and he really ought to have known better — ended up in Younghyun being sent promptly out again to get more eggs, carrots, canned tuna, and specifically silken _dubu_.

"But _eomma_ , I don't even know where to —"

"Use that Google!"

Jinyoung was absolutely laughing at him as he was chased out of the kitchen by his mother's voice.

At least being sent on a last minute shopping trip meant that when he got back (with Sungjin in tow, who'd gladly allowed himself to be invited for a proper Chuseok feast), most of the food was ready and the last of the _nokdujeon_ was sizzling away on the griddle (yet another thing he hadn't know they had). The kitchen table was crowded with plates and makeshift baskets for the festive parade of _jeon_ , the _galbijim_ claypot (definitely from the embassy) taking pride of place atop a folded towel in the middle of the spread.

"I'm back." Younghyun hefted the shopping bag in his hand. "Had to drive all the way to Chinatown for this. This is my friend, Park Sungjin."

"I did the shopping for him," Sungjin said unhelpfully after making his bowed greetings, "in return for a lift."

Younghyun's mother beamed at him. "Ah, that's so kind of you. It's good to know there are some boys who know how to grocery shop."

"It was fair trade." Younghyun shrugged. "And a higher chance of you actually getting what you want, _eomma_. I know how to shop the _basics_."

"Well," his mother said doubtfully as she took the groceries from him, "you don't look malnourished. Go get your housemates, please, Wonpilie said he'd go get _pyeha_ about half an hour ago but they haven't returned yet."

The cousins had apparently been sidetracked by playing with a swing-y variation of Chopsticks — Wonpil on the piano and Dowoon tapping cautiously at the electronic drum set, which had been his and Wonpil's (and Wonpil's family's) joint birthday present to Dowoon. Jinyoung, propping up the piano, was offering sardonically unhelpful narration.

"Dinner," he said, rapping the doorjamb. "Aren't you hungry?"

Wonpil swept towards him with more speed he'd ever seen before.

"Ravenous!" Wonpil cried, and caught him by the elbow. "I didn't eat _anything_ on the train. Let's go, hyung!"

They descended quite literally on the kitchen, though not quite like the Jinyoung's poetic Assyrians coming down like the wolf on the fold.

Or perhaps so, because the food could not have withstood the assault of five young men more like ravenous beasts than anything else. As always, Dowoon seemed to lose all sense of decorum in Wonpil's presence, but nobody seemed to mind — not the four of them, nor Younghyun's parents, who were pacing themselves far more sensibly and giving Dowoon soft, tender looks.

They had, Younghyun remembered abruptly, after all known him as a child too. Younghyun's dad more so than his mother, of course, but his dad had carried back stories — and there was always that one about Younghyun taking the matter of acquiring a younger sibling quite literally into his own hands.

"I haven't cooked like that in a while," said Younghyun's mother eventually.

"Come and visit us any time, _eomonim_ ," declared Wonpil.

She laughed when Dowoon nodded along, even as he concentrated on making himself another little wrap with the _gujeolpan_ fillings.

"Reminds me of my _eomma_ 's cooking," Sungjin offered, surfacing from his communion with the short rib patties.

Wonpil burped behind a polite hand. "I think I've eaten enough in the past two days to last me the month."

"Why is it that only my son has nothing nice to say?" Younghyun's mother asked.

"I think hyung's too busy eating," Dowoon pointed out.

For Younghyun had indeed been fully occupied — mouth too full of rice and _galbijim_ to contribute.

"Mmm-mmmmm!" he tried, and then coughed. Younghyun swallowed painfully and protested, " _Appa_ hasn't said anything either!"

"I praised your mother plenty while we were cooking." His dad sipped at his wine.

Opening and closing his mouth speechlessly —

Wonpil giggled. "You look like a fish, hyung"

— Younghyun finally managed, "It's all perfect, _eomma_ , I've barely stopped to breathe."

"Wow," said Sungjin. "Those lines."

Younghyun thought some very dark thoughts.

"I haven't had this in so long, though." Jinyoung of all people intervened, lifting some marinated fernbrakes with his chopsticks. "It's such a treat."

"I've never had them before!" Wonpil added enthusiastically.

"Oh, well, these are just all right," said Younghyun's mother. "You only can get proper fernbrakes in Corea, I've found. We had some in France but it isn't the same variety. And it isn't the same dried and imported."

"Is it? _Halmeoni_ tried growing them in her garden once and gave up. She said the same thing." Wonpil shrugged. "I wouldn't know, I suppose."

The conversation screeched to a halt. Younghyun looked worriedly at Wonpil, which was why he saw Jinyoung bite his lip and reach out to hold Wonpil's hand.

Awkwardly, Younghyun's mother said, "Oh, Wonpilie, I'm so sorry — it slipped my mind."

Wonpil smiled — a funny little thing that didn't reach his eyes. Younghyun gripped his chopsticks tighter. "It's all right. I forget too, most of the time. S'pose growing up it was never a possibility, so I just don't think about it."

Dowoon had his head bowed over the remains of his radish soup.

"Well," said Younghyun's dad, "you never know, in a few decades..."

"Do you think so?" Jinyoung, whose usual ... exuberance had been muted in the face of actual adults in the room, piped up.

But of course Jinyoung knew some of it — it would have come up at some point. Jinyoung had been to Busan a few times to visit with _his_ grandparents, after all.

"Jinyoungie..." Wonpil tugged at his best friend's hand. "It's fine, how would _samchon_ know?"

"Well, what's the harm asking," said Jinyoung, but he subsided into his soup, while Dowoon moved the conversation onto the food Younghyun's parents had tried in France.

Sungjin-hyung still looked faintly confused a little while later when he followed Younghyun to the rice cooker for refills. "What," he whispered, "were they talking about?"

That's part of why Younghyun liked being friends with Sungjin — that sense of perspective from outside the royal bubble.

"There's an edict," he explained in an undertone, "it's why Wonpilie grew up here. Buyeong- _daegam_ — his grandfather, I mean — had to move overseas when his brother took the throne. They're forbidden from — well. From ever having freshly harvested Corean fernbrakes, I guess."

"What the fuck."

Younghyun shrugged. "It's for the security of the throne. Not that — not that it always helps." It certainly hadn't helped Dowoon's father.

Sungjin bit his lip and stared down at the kitchen tiles for a good few seconds. "I'm sorry," he said simply, when he looked back up, and let Younghyun have the burnt bits of rice that had stuck to the bottom of the cooker.

Back at the kitchen table, the conversation had flowed gamely on to the mildly hair-raising tales of his parents' globetrotting adventures. One's parents ought not at their age, he felt, be out drinking into the wee hours with strangers in random Spanish towns.

"Oh!" Wonpil exclaimed softly, looking at Younghyun's bowl when he retook his seat next to him. "Crispy rice. Hyung —" He gave Younghyun the big, pleading eyes.

With a sigh, Younghyun transferred a spoonful over to Wonpil's bowl and looked up to find his mother's eyes on him, even as his dad talked about what great friends he had become with Esteban of Random Town An Hour By Bus From Granada. Apparently they had exchanged email addresses.

Feeling strangely abashed, he glanced around the table. "Uh, does anyone else want the rest of the _galbijim_?"

Dowoon had already started in on the late summer strawberries his parents had picked in Dordogne, and his parents naturally gestured at him to take the rest of it.

"Hyung?" he asked Sungjin, who was finishing the stuffed perilla _jeon_ and shook his head. "Okay then."

"I want just a spoonful of sauce," Wonpil told Younghyun, once he had moved to the galbijim pot over to himself, and reached over to claim it.

Ignoring the way his mother was still just _looking_ at him — at them — Younghyun raised his chin and joined in the conversation with an " _Appa_ , please think about your _liver_ ," which set off a long debate about appreciating local customs that carried them all the way to the end of the evening.

*

A few days after the hurricane of his parents had passed, Younghyun found Wonpil in the piano room playing a sweet, slow waltz.

It was easier to listen and watch the contained little smile on Wonpil's face than to broach the topic he didn't really want to; easier by far just to sway along to the leading rhythm of the song, caught by the shapes that Wonpil's hands made curved over the keys, the push and pull of the piece itself, and how Wonpil seemed to play with his whole body.

"Hi," said Wonpil, when the piece had slowed down to a fading close, his foot lifting from what Younghyun now knew was the _sustain_ pedal. "What d'you think?"

"It's — pretty. You — you play it very prettily, Wonpil-ah."

Wonpil's smile widened and he laughed a little, shyly pleased the way he got whenever someone complimented him. "Thank you. It's just a bit of fun — a cabaret song, actually. [_Je te veux_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbT9DeULzU4)." He shook his head as though to clear it. "But anyway, why have you come to interrupt my noodling about?" He sounded so lightly playful, as he started pressing strange dreamy chords out of the piano.

"I'm —" Younghyun hesitated, but this had been nagging at him for days. "Sorry, about ... at dinner with my parents. _Eomma_ never really ... wanted to bother with the Palace, and _appa_ didn't like bringing his work home."

Wonpil paused on a discordant set of notes, before lifting his fingers off the keys, frowning. "I don't know what you're apologising for, hyung."

"I just ... " Younghyun sighed and leaned against the side of the piano. "It can't have been nice, being reminded of ... you know. The edict."

Wonpil bit his lip, his fingers twitched tellingly as he thought. Then Wonpil smiled up at him, washed out sunshine in the rain. "It would be different if I were suddenly banned from Britain, but really — I don't even know the place. I don't know enough to miss it."

 _You know_ _us_ , Younghyun wanted to say. _You know_ me.

But that wouldn't be helpful.

"But," Wonpil went slowly on, looking away and back at his score, "I think _harabeoji_ does. And _halmeoni_."

Younghyun let out a long, low breath. He was uselessly bereft of words.

"In any case, well. Thank you for apologising" — Wonpil's mouth twitched — "for something you have nothing to do with, even though you have left dirty mugs in the sink for fully two days."

Over Younghyun's sputtering, Wonpil laughed and turned a few pages. "It's fine. Listen to this next one, hyung, it's very boppy. I think you'll like it more."

He started playing something that sounded oddly familiar — there was something about the notes that sounded like it was from very old Chinese movies that his parents had occasionally watched on holiday, but the marching pulse underpinning and occasionally joining the right-hand line in a raggedy swing that _was_ , as Wonpil had said, very boppy.

Watching Wonpil's fingers dance up and down the ivories and Wonpil's head bob to the rhythm, Younghyun felt something rise up from deep within him: a warm, howling thing that he knew, from the dissatisfaction still roiling in his gut at this hapless inaction they were trapped in, had been incubating far too long to be nipped in the bud.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd say I want to eat all the food I wrote about but I live the plant-based diet life, so ... ... ... 
> 
> Anyway, if you enjoyed this! felt hangry! or some other (crj voice) e mo tion, then please let me know in a comment, kudos, and [do retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1311827005277642753?s=20).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life under capitalism is hard.
> 
> Or: Wonpil has a life crisis. Younghyun takes a turn as accidental career advisor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also featuring wonpil as a blanket burrito & v much inspired by [this photograph right here](https://64.media.tumblr.com/97388db865704713fb1859cc2ab86bd8/52ce30eaad947421-a9/s1280x1920/ba6e2375747b5a4ac295d90257f5cd34dc638ff8.jpg)

As overwhelming as second year was turning out to be, it seemed like Wonpil's final year of music school was much, much worse.

Chuseok seemed like a distant memory: a gasp stolen in the marathon of this term, even though it had been barely a month ago.

November had blown in with autumn rain and a heavy fog curling its way through the streets. His Majesty, thankfully, had scant few engagements in deference to his academic demands — which meant that __Younghyun__ had evenings free to catch up on his readings and coursework.

He was in the piano parlour on one such evening, working on his taxation project while Wonpil practised some dramatic-sounding thing that reflected the weather outside. Dowoon was in the sitting room next door, listening to recordings he'd made with some coursemates for a project.

An absence of the piano being played filtered into his consciousness, at some point. It was as good a point as any to take a break. Younghyun looked up from squinting at Corean excise tax data and stretched his arms over his head, feeling his back crack in a manner most satisfying. He was in the middle of rolling his neck when he saw —

Younghyun frowned and got up. Wonpil had stopped playing and was holding his right wrist, rotating it with a furrow between his brows.

"What's wrong?"

Wonpil jumped — terrible situational awareness — and looked up at him, still looking a bit pinched. "It's just ... my wrist has been bothering me." He shook his head. "It's — I don't know. I don't want to say nothing."

And what, Younghyun thought with dismay to himself, would be more terrifying to a pianist than some sort of hand-related injury.

He sat down on the edge of the bench. "I can try to help for tonight?"

"Help?" Wonpil blinked at him.

"For your hand. If it's just overused, I can —" Younghyun mimed pressing with his thumbs.

"Oh! Oh." Wonpil's ears went faintly pink. "Um. I. Every little helps, I suppose?"

He held his right hand out to Younghyun, and swivelled around to sit cross legged, scooching back a little to give Younghyun more space on the bench.

"Ow," he said loudly, when Younghyun found the tendon leading from his little finger and start pressing his knuckle into the stiff muscle around it. "Ow, what!"

"Don't they teach you ... how to take care of yourself? At your fancy music school?"

"Oh, well, stretches and things. I do do them," Wonpil said defensively. "It's just ..."

"Not enough," said Younghyun grimly.

Sighing, Wonpil slouched. "I suppose not."

They were quiet for a while as Younghyun worked his careful way from finger to finger.

"How do you know how to do this?" Wonpil asked, after emitting a high-pitched noise of distress when Younghyun splayed his fingers out to stretch.

"Work," said Younghyun. "When you've been at the firing range for a few hours..."

"Oh." Wonpil's breath hitched and he winced briefly. "That makes sense, I suppose." Then he sighed. "I wish I ..."

"You?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm — tired."

Younghyun looked up at him through his fringe — it was long overdue for a trim and falling into his eyes. "You can do it, Wonpil-ah. Only ... less than a quarter of the way to go."

"It's ... " Wonpil started, stopped. He shook his head. "It isn't just finishing the degree, you know. What's going to happen next? The arts job market isn't amazing, at the best of times, and — well."

Younghyun concentrated on trying to press the tension out of the ball of Wonpil's palm. He'd nominally had a job since he was sixteen, and this was — he was in this for the long haul. Wonpil knew this. Perhaps all Wonpil wanted was for someone to listen.

"I love music," Wonpil said quietly, almost as though to himself, "but what do I want to do with it?"

Younghyun found himself speaking without much conscious thought. "Whatever you want. You'll be good at it."

Wonpil's eyes flicked up to him and back down, to where Younghyun held Wonpil's hand splayed out between his own. A slight smile curved his lips. "Thank you for your faith, hyung."

"Have faith in yourself," he said, thinking about a not-so-long-ago drive.

"Mmmm." Wonpil's face was still mostly obscured when he had his head ducked, like this. Younghyun almost ducked as well, just so he could try to convey the admiration he had for Wonpil's music and passion without words.

"Teaching?" Younghyun said instead, the thought coming to him unbidden. "You — you volunteer sometimes, with that programme, don't you?"

"Ye-e-es?" Wonpil made a little noise as Younghyun's thumbs found another knot. "But... that's very different from teaching in a school. The kids've all already got, you know, a good foundation. By the time they let us at them, anyway"

Younghyun shrugged. "You explain things well to me."

Whatever reply Wonpil had was lost, though, to the arrival of Jinyoung.

"What," said Jinyoung, stopping dead in the doorway with his arms full of a stack of books, papers, and his laptop perched atop it all, "the hell is going on here?"

"My wrist." Wonpil looked over his shoulder. "Hyung's helping with the achiness."

"Haven't you gone to the GP for a referral yet?"

"Oh," Wonpil said unhappily. "When would I have the time?"

" _ _Make__ time." Jinyoung headed crossly over to the study table. "Honestly, Wonpilie."

Wonpil opened his mouth, but only a yelp came out when Younghyun shifted his grip to thumb into the tense muscles of his forearm.

"You really should," Younghyun told him. "There's only so much I can do."

Huffing, Wonpil looked away. "Ganging up on me, I see."

"A rare, but notable occasion," Jinyoung said drily as he opened his laptop. "For the worthiest of reasons."

"The embassy doctors," began Younghyun.

Wonpil's lips tightened and he shook his head. "No, we have — specialists, at the college. Or, well, the lecturers know people. I'll speak with my tutor tomorrow."

Jinyoung stopped clicking around. "You'd __better__."

"You're worse than __eomma__."

"Only because she doesn't know." Jinyoung paused significantly. "Yet."

"I can drive you," Younghyun interjected hastily, "to wherever you have to go. For the specialist. So don't worry about that."

"There, see?" Jinyoung turned back to his essay and started digging through his pile of papers. "That's settled then. Younghyun and I are in perfect accord — so you know this is the right thing to do."

Wonpil pouted and then yelped again when Younghyun pressed into the soft flesh of his inner elbow and found another sore spot. "Fine! __Fine__!"

*

"Well," said Wonpil while he did the daily exercises his physical therapist had assigned him, "at least I wasn't ever aiming at being a soloist."

There was something about his determined cheer that made Younghyun feel a strange, burning skittering in his chest.

"You have the composing too," said Jinyoung, who was making his dinner i.e. waiting for it to warm up in the microwave.

"Yes." Wonpil looked down at his fingers. "I had to back out of a couple of accompaniment gigs today."

Dowoon gave him a worried look. "They didn't blame you, did they?"

"Oh — no, no. Everyone was very understanding. I'm still accompanying Padma — of last year's attempted defenestration," he said pointedly to Younghyun, who sighed. "But that's because we work so well together."

The microwaved pinged.

"Well, you'd taken on too many anyway," Jinyoung sniffed. "So it's fine. Did you talk to your personal tutor?"

"Yes, we discussed my options." Wonpil bit his lip and glanced almost imperceptibly over at Younghyun. "I've had to change my modules for next term, but it'll be all right, I think."

Younghyun, who had wanted to know too but also hadn't wanted to nag, looked curiously back. "Will it?"

"Well ... " Wonpil switched to doing the exercises for his left wrist. "Suffice to say that I shall be incredibly busy next term, even without having to learn all those other pieces."

"Very mysterious." Jinyoung sat down at the kitchen table.

"You're incredibly busy __now__ , hyung," Dowoon pointed out.

"It'll be fine."

"Will it?" Younghyun asked

Wonpil shrugged and smiled. "It has to be."

*

Even though he'd been recused from accompanying friends and the period ensemble, Wonpil somehow still spent as much time out of the house.

Younghyun caught him walking home one Friday evening as he jogged down the street from the other direction.

Wonpil looked tired, and a little pinched even from afar. His face registered only blankness for a split-second when Younghyun sprinted to meet him, slowing to join Wonpil with an awkward wave only a few feet away.

"Oh, hyung." His eyelashes dipped for a quick moment before he met Younghyun's concerned look. "Hullo. Running so late?"

"It was raining too hard this morning."

Wonpil grimaced. "Yes. It was so hard to get out of bed."

"Well." Younghyun smiled a little. "I didn't."

"That explains why your shoes were still under the bench when I left."

They turned the corner onto their own street. Younghyun opened his mouth, then closed it. The shadows under Wonpil's eyes were looking increasingly like bruises.

"You don't ..." he hesitated again. "You're not usually out that early."

"Oh." Wonpil laughed a dry airless thing. "It's not a secret, I just — haven't said. I'm doing a shadowing experience, at that secondary school near the church over Victoria way."

"A school?"

Giving him a sidelong look, Wonpil smiled, small and private. "You put the idea in my mind, actually — teaching. And my tutor said I'd have a better chance of success, with a little classroom experience."

"Oh." Younghyun managed, breath knocked out of him.

"I didn't expect — well, it's so late in the term, but Bev — my tutor, I mean — was really good about helping me get one." He shook his head. "Probably had dirt on the teacher I'm being a nuisance to."

"I don't think you could be one," Younghyun said reflexively.

"Oh, but I am." Wonpil shrugged. "I'm doing my best to not be, but — well. It's an interruption anyway, isn't it?"

Younghyun wasn't sure what to say. Not when Wonpil was clearly so tired that every word and step he took seemed leaden.

"Maybe," he said slowly, feeling his way through a nascent thought. "But teachers are very busy anyway, and if you're helping with the students or ... or marking, then it's still a help."

Wonpil made a non-commital noise, and then yawned.

"Well, you should sleep in this weekend. Sleep more in general." He raised his hand and almost touched the shadows under Wonpil's eyes before coming to his senses. "You look like a breeze could knock you over."

"It almost did," Wonpil mused, almost walking into a bicycle rack before Younghyun pulled him out of the way. "This morning. Ghastly weather."

"Okay. I think you should just go right to bed when we get home."

"I can't — I've got —"

"—and it'll all be nonsense if you even try writing tonight," Younghyun cut in. He knew from intimate experience. "I'll get Dowoonie to sit on you if I have to."

Wonpil cut him a look while Younghyun spotted his trudging up of the steps to their front door. "Not you?"

"I," Younghyun said, feeling a little warm despite the cooling sweat on his skin, "would crush you to death."

"I'm not quite that frail."

Wonpil sat down with a thump on the bench to take his boots off, and had to be hauled up to his feet again when he was done.

Just as they got to the first floor landing, Jinyoung emerged from his room.

"You look like a zombie," Jinyoung told Wonpil. "Death warmed over. Like Hades himself tongue-kissed you."

"Ew, Jinyoungie!" Wonpil recoiled, almost falling back down the stairs but for Younghyun's steadying hand.

Through their combined efforts, Wonpil was bundled from perfunctory shower on his floor upstairs into a hot bath that Jinyoung had tossed a muslin-wrapped ball of flowers into. It had bafflingly turned the water purple, but smelt of lavender and other lovely, delicate things.

"Is this from your __noona__?" Wonpil sounded muffled from behind the bathroom door. There was a splashing sound. "It's well nice."

"Yeah, she said something about encouraging me to shower more often."

Younghyun looked at Jinyoung, who raised a daring eyebrow in return.

"It's worked," called Wonpil. "I smell that ginger soap every night."

"Because you keep stealing it?" Jinyoung retorted.

Wonpil yawned loudly in response.

"I have to go," Younghyun told Jinyoung in an undertone, "Dowoon has an engagement tonight."

"Yeah, yeah." Jinyoung waved him off. "I'll make sure Wonpilie doesn't drown or something."

Turning back to the door, Younghyun hesitated, caught Jinyoung's watchful look, and rapped on it. "I'm going now, Wonpil-ah. Don't even try to do work tonight, okay?"

There was no response but a splash that managed to sound petulant, and then Younghyun really had to go.

*

It was past noon and Wonpil had yet to make an appearance.

"Hyung must be __really__ tired," Dowoon said.

"Better wake him up soon," Jinyoung said on his way out the door, "otherwise his stomach will eat itself."

They exchanged slightly puzzled looks in Jinyoung's wake.

"Well, he should eat something anyway. Did hyung have dinner when he came home?"

"No ... I don't know. Maybe after he bathed?" Younghyun frowned and got up. "Well, we have embassy kimbap if he's hungry."

"Mmm..." Dowoon looked a little dubious, but said nothing whilst they climbed up to the first storey together.

There was nary a sound when they paused on the landing outside of Wonpil's door, not even a rustle when Younghyun essayed a tentative knock.

"Hyung," Dowoon said sadly, "must be really, __really__ tired."

"Hmmm." Younghyun looked contemplatively at the door knob, before trying it. It turned. "Well, nothing for it, I suppose."

The room was dimly lit, midday sun filtering in around the edges of the heavy curtains. It smelt faintly of tangerines and the pine-scented embassy-approved disinfectant. Most of the furniture were dark shapes: the wardrobe tall and hulking, the dresser spindly legged and topped with books, the reading table across the room under the window a familiar rectangle with uneven stacks of books and folders in silhouette, and finally the bed, Wonpil a curved lump underneath his thick duvet, one arm flung out over a pillow.

They exchanged uncertain looks; Dowoon woke easily with a rap to his door, and Younghyun's parents' methods of waking him up when he'd been a child were probably not applicable here.

"Wonpil-ah," Younghyun said at last, clear and carrying. "Wake up."

There was a suspended silence; dust motes danced through the thin shafts of winter sunlight that slid through the gap between curtain and windowframe. Struck by inspiration, Younghyun went to draw the curtains.

This inspired a reaction, as sunlight — weak as it was — fell full on the bed.

From under the covers came a discontented murmur, and a rustling of sheets as Wonpil scrunched tighter into a ball, arm curling over the pillow and pulling it into the nest he'd created.

Laughing a little helplessly, Younghyun went back to the bed. Dowoon shadowed him uncertainly.

"Hey." He steeled himself, and reached out to pull the duvet back. "You've got to eat something, Wonpil-ah. Jinyoung said so."

There was a groan, then Wonpil rasped, "Bugg'r 'im," before pulling his pillow over his head.

This time, Dowoon couldn't help but laugh. " _Hyuuuung_ ," he said in that whine he seemed to have developed solely for use on Wonpil, "Hyung, come eat with us. Younghyun-hyung's cooking."

Younghyun gave him an owl-eyed look.

Wonpil's response was muffled but probably very rude.

"Drink water, at least," said Younghyun, looking around for some. Wonpil usually had a bottle with him somewhere -- ah, on the floor. He picked it up and unscrewed it, before pulling the pillow away from Wonpil's sleep-weak grasp. "Here."

It seemed like Wonpil was still half-asleep as he leaned up just enough to take the bottle and gulp from it, splashing a little on himself. Right after handing the bottle back to Younghyun, he burrowed under his duvet again.

"No!" Dowoon cried. "Hyung, you have to get out of bed!"

"Shan't," Wonpil replied petulantly, but sounded markedly more awake than before.

"We aren't going away until you get up, Wonpil-ah."

There was a long, grumbling moan and then a general shift under the duvet. It rose like a tent around Wonpil, the opening clutched close by his fingers and his face appearing in the opening as he sat hunched over and gave Younghyun and Dowoon a look of such existential despair they were moved to — or at least Dowoon was — climb onto the bed next to him and put an awkward arm around where Wonpil's shoulders approximately were.

"It's okay, hyung." Dowoon was clearly parroting things Wonpil had said to him before. "You'll be okay."

Wonpil blinked and pouted blankly into the distance.

"Um," said Younghyun, feeling as though reinforcements were perhaps called for. "You can do it, Wonpil-ah. And if you can't today, that's okay too. To, you know, take a —"

Wonpil straightened up all of a sudden and threw off his duvet, pitching Dowoon off-balance.

"I can do it," he said, determinedly. "Of course I can. I'm Kim Wonpil, aren't I!!"

Dowoon pushed himself back upright. Wonpil started and whipped around to look at him, before his mouth dropped open.

Seeming to realise that they were not, in fact, mirages, Wonpil looked at the two of them with some embarrassment. "Um."

"You ...are," offered Younghyun.

He got a blinding beam in return, and Wonpil nodded decisively before skipping off out of his room.

Dowoon was giving him a very speaking look when Younghyun turned around slowly to check on him.

"I shall not comment," said Dowoon, and slid off the bed. "I think I want more than kimbap for lunch today, hyung. Can we have hot food? There's mandu in the freezer."

"...All right." Younghyun decided to be grateful, and took himself off to the kitchen. If Wonpil was going to do coursework today he'd need the energy for it. All of them would.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the final scene and kim wonpil's I AM KIM WONPIL is directly taken from kwp's [introducing my instrument](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7up_3rBa31E) clip. ... this charmed me so much I wrote it as a motif into this series.
> 
> please comment, [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1314402733361950722), let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Younghyun has a birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, instead of a real summary I thought it would be fun to instead have a selection of bysine's delightful comments as they cheer-read this chapter:
> 
> \- 'these are v high produciton [sic] value balloons'  
> \- 'a yung man who does not know heartburn  
> \- 'the UK x ... ineXplicable'  
> \- 'THINGS!!! ARE COMING!!! TO A HAED[sic]!!!!'

They stayed in London for Christmas this year, the Corean Cultural Centre having politely enquired as to the possibility of His Majesty putting in an appearance at the Winter Solstice festivities. Added to which Wonpil's unfailing excitement about Christmas rather advertising the season.

"You ought to come stay for Christmas!" he said excitedly. "It's not like there isn't precedent."

Younghyun, who had recently attained the rank of third lieutenant, felt a pang of great sympathy for (First) Lieutenant Choi. _He_ probably greatly regretted having allowed the very first trip over Easter.

"It'll be in Bognor," Wonpil went on, "and _harabeoji_ always has a Royal tree. As well as security. So you won't have to fuss about quite so much, Younghyun-hyung."

"That sounds nice," Dowoon said, and that was that.

Before Christmas, however, was Younghyun's birthday.

He had managed to arrange his schedule such that he'd get to sleep in, maybe finish a straggling bit of coursework, and then ... an entire day off with nothing to do. So he had studied a little later into the night and went to sleep anticipating his day of sleep and food and maybe getting Wonpil to play the piano for him — not that _that_ ever was difficult.

But of course, no plan survived first contact with the enemy.

A loud bang, a shout, and thudding feet pitched Younghyun abruptly out of some already fading dream. Panicked adrenaline shot through his veins; contingency scenarios flashed fuzzily through his mind as he reached out for the knife he kept nearby always and shot upright, curling a leg under himself.

There was a sound like someone choking, and then dead silence.

It took a few seconds for the tableau before him to resolve into focus, not least because Younghyun had yet to put in his contacts.

His voice came out rough and in some register from the deeps of hell, the way it usually sounded before he'd had some water first thing in the morning. "Who? What? Dead?"

Unhelpfully, Wonpil looked over his shoulder. "I see why you told me that if we did a prank it should be at a distance, Dowoonie."

"...What the fuck?"

It was Wonpil's squeak that made the panic recede a bit, enough for the sleep fog to roll back in and remind Younghyun all over again that he'd gone to sleep hours past midnight. That he'd stayed up late to finish a final bit of coursework for Environmental Economics, and come to think of it, may have been dreaming about Matlab before the cousins had burst in.

"Happy birthday, hyung!" Wonpil sounded determinedly cheery, even as his eyes were wide and fixed on — oh. Younghyun was still gripping the knife. He put his hand down. Wonpil babbled, "Um, we wanted to bring you breakfast in bed, because ... because it's your birthday and you've been working so hard, but I — I suppose you don't need cutlery!" He punctuated this with a nervous laugh and clasped his hands together before him.

Blinking hard, Younghyun tried to sort through what was happening.

Wonpil was. Wonpil was in his bedroom. There were large foil balloons floating up near the ceiling, tethered to his grip by long silver ribbons. Dowoon was there too, holding a tray and — food. Younghyun smelt food and no burning. There was no emergency.

"What ..." His brain caught up with his ears. "No ... cutlery?"

He leaned forward to squint at the tray in Dowoon's hands and then back up at Wonpil, who — he realised with a jolt that cleared the sleep fog at a speed nothing short of mortal danger would have otherwise — was now staring at a fixed point on the duvet cover and had turned faintly pink.

He twisted to dig out the sheath, before wedging his knife, safely put away, back in between the mattress and headboard. When he turned back, Wonpil's eyes darted back to the duvet and his ears were definitely red.

Younghyun was on the brink of preening, before he then caught Dowoon's eye through a gap in the enormous balloons that Wonpil was holding. His face was almost perfectly neutral, but for the way his eyebrows had quirked slightly higher and he was looking a little pained.

Well, good, now he knew how Younghyun felt about Jinyoung's bloody trolling poster of him.

"Um, jokes?" Wonpil squeaked, before swiftly turning and tripping over to the writing table under the window. "We definitely brought cutlery."

He busied himself with tying the balloons to a table leg; Younghyun watched his fingers at it, looping the ribbons around and over and through into a loose knot.

Dowoon cleared his throat. "Enough for all three of us. And a picnic blanket. Hyung thought it would be fun to have an indoor picnic. On your floor."

Slowly, Younghyun turned back to him. Even sans spectacles, Younghyun could tell there was just barely enough food on the tray for one of him.

"There's a basket outside!" Wonpil hurried across the room, a blur of messy curls, pink cheeks, and the charity shop Christmas jumper he hadn't stopped wearing since the start of November. It was a large cream Aran-esque jumper that swamped him, patterned with reindeers getting up to no good at all.

"Hyung," said Dowoon once Wonpil was out of the door. "Please put a shirt on." This had more the air of a royal request than Dowoon was wont to in private; in deference to his desperation, Younghyun reached for the pullover hanging off the end of his bed.

"For your innocence, Dowoonie," Younghyun told him, feeling cheerful despite having been woken up before midday.

He heard Dowoon's huff as he was shoving the pullover on over his head, and grinned to himself.

"Right, here we are—" Wonpil backed his way through the door, a truly prodigious wicker basket in his arms. Younghyun wondered faintly if it was from Fortnum. The basket, that was, not the contents. Unless Wonpil had somehow prevailed upon his grandfather to — Younghyun cut off that train of thought and climbed off his bed.

"We made bacon and eggs." Dowoon proudly showed him the tray, upon which a domed wok lid sat over a dinner plate that presumably bore said bacon and eggs. "They're not very burnt!"

"They're not burnt at _all_." Wonpil was busily unpacking the contents of his picnic basket onto the blanket he'd spread out on the floor between Younghyun's bed and chest of drawers. "Take the lid off, Dowoonie, or the bacon will get all soft."

"What if I like soft bacon," Younghyun teased as he knelt to help finish unpacking the basket. There was a thermos and a cafetiere already filled with ground coffee.

Wonpil glanced up from where he was peeling back the lid of some tinned pâté (reinforcing the dizzying idea that Prince Buyeong had been somehow involved in the procurement of this picnic) to give him a severe look. "I've seen you fry bacon before, hyung."

"Maybe it's because _pyeha_ likes his bacon that way."

"No, I do not," Dowoon said, poking experimentally at a rasher with a fork before announcing with great satisfaction, "it's still crispy, Wonpilie-hyung. Well done, me."

"Oh, good." Wonpil retrieved the final treat: a cluster of clementines in a net bag before sitting back with a smile. "Shall we eat?"

"I'm going to brush my teeth," said Younghyun, rocking back onto and up on his feet. "You start first though."

The coffee put a little life into him and the food finished the job. In addition to the mound of steaming scrambled eggs, what looked like an entire pack of bacon, and the intimidating pâté, Wonpil and Dowoon had prepared: crumpets (toasted over the fire that Younghyun hastened to take over building in his fireplace); a little jar of pickled mango relish; cherry tomatoes on the vine; and _baek kimchi_ in a small, earthenware pot to help cut through all the grease.

As was their custom, they fell silent whilst demolishing the picnic.

At some point — after the bacon had disappeared and the eggs had dwindled to a last courtesy islet — Wonpil's phone went off.

"The sausages!" he yelled in dismay, before disappearing downstairs.

"We went to that butcher shop next to the chocolate shop," Dowoon confided. "Wonpilie-hyung was _so_ scared to go inside."

"Scared?"

"He said he didn't sound posh enough to be in there and that they'd kick him out." Dowoon paused and grinned. "And then he just straightened up and pretended to be _chakeun harabeoji_. It was really funny."

Younghyun was laughing at the mental image when Wonpil reappeared with another plate, piled high with the pork and apple sausages that were Younghyun's favourite, right after venison and red wine. He'd never known, before coming to England, that sausage could have texture, not come in a plastic tube, or taste of more than salt and regret.

Wonpil was the first to slow down and lean back on his hands, arching distractingly down onto his elbows as he groaned about being full. Dowoon followed, belly-flopping onto the blanket. Younghyun forged determinedly on, the first plate of food having whet his appetite.

"You have a hollow leg," Wonpil said, watching him with slight wonder.

"I have to exercise. Every day," disagreed Younghyun. "Also, I'm a growing boy."

"You're twenty-one!"

"So?"

"So you're not — you're not a boy! You're literally an adult. By _any_ country's definition."

"Okay," said Younghyun, full of easy indulgence and more crucially breakfast, "so I'm a growing man."

Because of his pleasantly full stomach, possibly also because of the early alarm and the adrenaline surge dissipating, lethargy soon overcame him again.

He mostly listened to Wonpil and Dowoon chatter at each other, content to hear Wonpil's flights of fantasy and Dowoon's bewilderment, to teasingly stoke the embers of petty disagreement between the cousins, to watch as they squabbled before reconciling over the last clementine segment.

"Shouldn't the birthday boy — sorry, _man_ — get it?" Younghyun asked, just as Wonpil was about to pop it into his mouth.

"Oh!" Wonpil paused, looking guilty, then held the segment out. "Sorry, hyung. You can have it."

Younghyun pushed his hand back. "No, you have it, I'll finish this meat paste thing."

" _Hyung_ ," complained Wonpil, dropping the segment onto his plate. " _You_ have both. It's your birthday. We have more downstairs, anyway."

Downstairs, incidentally, where the cousins packed themselves off to get started on dishes and presumably deal with whatever chaos had reigned in their breakfast-making. Younghyun decided he wasn't going to look.

Too stuffed to go back to sleep, Younghyun instead put on his scarf and coat and went outside for a post-prandial stroll.

The wintry wind was brisk and invigorating, and had Younghyun sinking his face half into the soft, wide loops of his scarf. He usually went north up to Hyde Park or bore north-north-east to cut into St James's. Today, though, feeling cheerful and still warm from the inside with good food and company, he strolled south all the way down to and across the bridge to Pimlico Park.

He was meandering along the network of dirt paths criss-crossing the park when Wonpil texted him.

_Where are you? Dowoonie and I are done with the dishes x_

Younghyun looked around at the broad green he'd found himself on: dry grass on brown dirt, bare trees crowned with a thin coverlet of surprise snow, their black crooked branches reaching like fingers up to the blue sky. The Thames was a silver ribbon glinting through the trees, several hundred metres away.

He shrugged, took a photograph, sent it over.

 _Well that's helpful_ , Wonpil sent back, the huff in his voice audible.

Younghyun probably looked a bit mad, laughing to himself in the middle of nowhere.

_Do you need me at home?_

_? No. Just thought we might join you. If you'd like x_

_Both of you?_

_Oh Corporal Yang's just turned up at the door_

_Dowoonie's got a group meeting, how boring_

Younghyun laughed again, and started walking — it was too cold to stand still for long.

_I thought you had lots of work still_

_No today's a bank holiday of the domain of our_

_house no work allowed_

_Unless you're Dowoonie :(_

_Blame his project-mates_

_But I'm not v sure where I am, Wonpil-ah._

_Meet at King's Arms for a pint in 45 minutes?_

_A pint! Deviance! ;)_

_It's after 12_

_And it's my birthday :(_

_Point_

_Ok then, see you on the hour-ish x_

_:) :) :)_

Putting his phone away, Younghyun found his way back to the main riverside path and ambled back to the gates, feeling a little bereft as the relative peace of the park which somehow muted the usual sounds of London traffic fell away behind him.

In The King's Arms (it never failed to make Wonpil giggle whenever he went there with Dowoon), he found Wonpil already installed in one of the comfortable armchairs next to the fireplace, amber glass of mulled cider on the table before him while he gazed dazedly at the flickering flames.

"Anyone could poison you, like this," he said. Wonpil twitched all over as Younghyun squatted to stoke the fire a little with the poker. There was a pop and crackle; the flames rose a little higher before settling back down.

"Hyung!" Wonpil protested.

"Morbid," said old Jim the publican, who'd appeared with a pint of Younghyun's usual. "On the house for your birthday, lad. Twenty-first, is it?"

"Yes." Younghyun rose to take the glass. "Cheers, Jim."

"You're quite welcome. We've got the Christmas specials out already, if you'd like a bite." Jim nodded at the blackboard, upon which was chalked said specials. "Pil's already got a head start, as you can see."

Walking in the cold for over an hour had had him working up an appetite, so he ordered the Christmas Stuffing Cannelloni out of curiosity.

"Raj's some sort of mad genius," said Wonpil, after Younghyun's lunch arrived and he'd stolen a bite. "Heston who?"

Wonpil was probably the head cook's number one fan; he'd had such raptures over their rabbit risotto last year, Jim had been charmed into taking them into the kitchen. That, and possibly because Jim had learnt somehow that amongst his regulars counted "only a bloody bona fide _king_ ".

The cannelloni was stuffed with nutty mushrooms, laced with the voluptuous sweetness of roasted chestnuts minced with herbs; shreds of gamey duck were somewhere in the mix. The three plush tubes of pasta sat in a brown sauce buttery and piquant with sage, leavened by a surprise hint of orange.

Younghyun was too busy chewing to respond properly to Wonpil.

"You have to save your stomach for dinner, hyung," Wonpil said reproachfully, after stealing more spoonfuls of stuffing.

Amused, Younghyun swallowed. "So do you."

"I'm just _helping_." Wonpil excavated another spoonful of stuffing.

"I'll work out before dinner," Younghyun said lazily. "You could always join me."

"No thank you," said Wonpil primly; his ears adorably tinted red. "I've got to help out with dinner."

Younghyun paused in the middle of mopping up sauce with stuffing. "Wonpil-ah..."

Wonpil popped the spoon into his mouth and hummed inquiringly around it.

"Thank you."

As expected, Wonpil flushed harder and looked pleased, all while trying to flap the sentiment away with his hands. It was hard, so very hard, not to coo, the way the tight knot of affection under his sternum was pushing at Younghyun to do.

He laughed instead, as Wonpil burrowed back into his deep armchair, picked his tall glass of mulled cider back up, and hid in it.

The feeling of warm contentment persisted as they ambled back the long way around, cutting through cobble-stoned mews to peer at Christmas displays in shopfronts that neither of them really wanted to go into.

"What've you got planned for the rest of today, hyung?" Wonpil asked as they finally turned back onto their street.

It was quiet; many of their neighbours had gone away for ski holidays or similarly monied things. Of the remaining ones, the more festively inclined had put Christmas lights up in their front windows and boughs of holly on their front doors. It looked quite jolly, all things considered.

"I'd been planning on finishing my last course project for the term" — he cut Wonpil an amused look — "but since _someone_ declared it a work-free day in the, what was it?"

"Domain of our household," Wonpil said primly. His hands were stuck in his coat pockets; he had drawn his hoodie up and over his head to shelter his ears; the tip of his nose had gone pink with cold. "Or something."

"Or something," Younghyun agreed. "So I think I might nap instead. You?"

"I'd take a hot bath if it weren't for dinner later."

"Oh? What's for dinner?"

"A _secret_ , Kang Younghyun, don't try to weasel it out of me."

"I've never weaselled anything in my life" — he put on the affected tones he'd heard on the period show Wonpil and Jinyoung had been watching the other day — "upon my honour."

Wonpil laughed and dashed up the stairs to their front door. "That's quite good. Hyung, you open the door, my hands are cold."

Younghyun made a show of sighing and rolling his eyes, but excavated his keys from the depths of his coat pocket anyway. Their front door had a keypad, not unlike those common in Corea, but after getting past security there was the old-fashioned way of getting in through a door.

Next to him, Wonpil hopped from foot to foot.

"You know..." he pushed the door open and let Wonpil squeeze in past him into the warm vestibule. "It's even colder than this in places like Seoul."

"I wouldn't know." Wonpil sounded muffled as he bent over to unlace his boots. "But good job great-grandfather or whoever it was that moved the palace down to Busan then. Wise man," he concluded, sitting back up, just as Younghyun realised just how much of an insensitive idiot he'd been. "Why are you just standing there with your gobs all smacked?"

"My _gobs_ all _wha_ — oh." Younghyun sat down next to him to work on his own boots. "You need to stop confusing us poor non-native speakers, Wonpil-ah."

Wonpil gave him a brief smile, extracting his feet out of his boots and sliding into his home slippers. "You were going to apologise for something that wasn't your fau — your decision again. I had to distract you."

He stood up while Younghyun was still trying to formulate a response. " _Now_ you just look daft."

"It's my birthday," Younghyun muttered, undoing the final knot and tugging his feet free. "Be nice to me."

Laughing, Wonpil skipped away to the stairs. "I'll play something appropriate for napping on the piano, how's that?"

And so Younghyun napped soundly in his pyjamas, sprawled out on the chaise longue in the sitting room after drifting off to the sound of Wonpil practising something delicately complex — smearing bass and airy light runs higher up, carrying him floating off into sweet, wispy dreams.

He was woken a while later by the whine of the front door easing open, the faint clatter of metal on metal, the familiar prosody of Busan raised in faint exasperation carrying up from the kitchen.

"Sungjin-hyung?" Younghyun muttered to himself, rubbing his hands over his face and into his hair in an attempt to wake himself up. "What?"

"Oh, good, you're awake." Jinyoung leaned in through the door. "There's an internal alarm. Well, go get changed, unless you want to have dinner in your jim-jams. No judgement."

"That'll be a first," Younghyun said, then blinked hard. "Sorry."

Jinyoung laughed and shook his head. "It's fine, I like you when your brain-to-mouth filter isn't functioning yet."

Coughing to clear his throat, Younghyun got to his feet. "I'll keep that in mind. Uh. Dinner?"

"In the kitchen. We're all just waiting for you. Jaebeom-hyung just got here with the soju."

It transpired that Jaebeom had brought soju _and_ giant takeaway bowls of naengmyeon to go with the fresh pork belly, courtesy of Sungjin-hyung. _He_ had formed some bizarre sort of camaraderie with one of the terrifying cleaver-wielding aunties at Loon Fung, even though she barely spoke English and he had about a handful of Cantonese phrases.

"Wow." Younghyun stopped, arrested at the base of the kitchen stairs.

There was a loud click, hiss, and pop. Sungjin had turned on the portable grill.

"Happy birthday," Jinyoung said drily. "Now please move."

Still half-convinced he was having one of his gastronomic dreams, Younghyun moved as though in a daze to the kitchen table.

There were two large platters of _samgyeopsal_ flowered with fat on either side of the grill twinned with baskets of leaves. Repurposed tea saucers contained various _banchan_ , slices of peeled garlic, onions, and mushrooms. Nestled amongst the plethora of food was a newly opened box of _ssamjang_. On each end of the table, the black plastic naengmyeon bowls sweated in the kitchen warmth.

Taking a seat, he glanced around. Dowoon was missing, as was Wonpil. He frowned.

"Where's _pyeha_?"

"Damn," said Jaebeom unhelpfully, from where he'd been opening soju bottles. "Your voice."

Younghyun blinked stupidly at him. He needed water. A coffee. "What?"

Dowoon's voice floated up from the wine cellar, then. "Hyung! Not that bottle!"

"Why not," Wonpil retorted, emerging from behind the door, which had been left ajar. He had a hat on, presumably to protect his head from the cold of the cellar. " _My_ grandfather gave it to us to open whenever!"

"Because, I mean," Dowoon spluttered, appearing behind Wonpil, "it's not ready yet!"

"Yes it is, look at the year on this! It's aged plenty!"

"Well I looked it up and —"

"What are they arguing about?" asked Jaebeom, uncapping the last soju bottle.

Jinyoung sighed and took it from him to set out on the table. "Wine. Trust me, I was surprised too the first time this happened."

"Nobody except them and maybe Younghyun know what they're talking about," Sungjin added. The grill hissed as he scattered onion slices and garlic over it.

Running his hands over his face and through his hair again, Younghyun shook his head. "Not me. I know what poisoned wine tastes like, that's all I know."

There was a brief, horrified silence. He looked up from his attempt to wake all the way up properly into a frozen tableau. "Uh."

"It's the training," Dowoon said, moving to fill a mug with water. "I promise nobody's tried to poison me."

"That you know of," muttered Younghyun, taking the mug Dowoon held out to him.

Wonpil slid into place next to Younghyun, still holding that contentious bottle. He looked up at his cousin. "Dowoonie? No, wait — Younghyun-hyung, he _hasn't_ , right?"

Emptying the mug, Younghyun wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Not to the death. There's always kidnapping attempts and things."

"Well, on that very cheerful note," said Sungjin, "shall we eat?"

Jaebeom climbed into a seat, shaking his head. "Never a boring moment here. Soju?"

Once shots were distributed and strips of pork belly sizzling merrily away on the grill top, everyone busied themselves with decimating the _banchan_.

"Are you already hungry?" Wonpil asked. "You didn't even exercise."

"Sleeping's hungry work," replied Younghyun, and lifted his plate. The first round of pork was cut up nicely and done, ready for distribution.

It was only later, after Sungjin had put on a cut of meat he said was pork neck instead, that Wonpil turned to his other side and elbowed Dowoon. "Yah, Dowoonie."

Across the table, Younghyun observed Jaebeom's eyes widen; Sungjin, on the other hand, had stopped caring about etiquette after a year's worth of exposure to them.

"What?" Dowoon swallowed the _ssam_ he had been chewing on with some difficulty.

"Shouldn't you be the one doing all this grilling?"

Sungjin looked up, bug-eyed, from where he'd been turning some mushrooms to grill evenly. Jaebeom's eyes got saucer-wide again.

Jinyoung just laughed, hypocritically, as the second-youngest person at the table.

"I ... could give it a go," Dowoon said. "I did a good job with the bacon, didn't I?"

"Maybe another time, Dowoon-ah," Younghyun intervened quickly. Maybe when birthday pork wasn't at risk.

Dowoon performed something very similar to a pout. He really was spending too much time with Wonpil, who was _also_ pouting despite his own dinner having been under threat.

"I don't mind grilling," said Sungjin. "Really."

"All right." Dowoon sat down, looking dissatisfied. "But next time."

The momentary crisis past, Jinyoung started telling stories of him and his cousins in Corea fighting over who got to grill things and who ought to wrap _ssams_ for whom. Jaebeom and Sungjin chimed in with their own stories from before they had come to London, Dowoon asking innocently probing questions that unearthed horrific details about eating competitions and sodden summers once they had turned twenty.

"They would never let me," Dowoon frowned and made himself another _ssam_. "Palace food's always so _healthy_."

This started off another extended discussion about Corean food and what, exactly, Dowoon had been allowed to eat in his life so far.

Younghyun glanced sidelong at Wonpil, but he was smiling quietly down at the _ssam_ he was piling up with perilla kimchi and ssamjang and slices of pickled radish.

"Are you sure that's all going to fit?" Younghyun murmured.

Wonpil looked back at him, smiled a little wider. "It's for you. Birthday wrap."

For a split-second, white static replaced all thought. _Would_ , he thought, _Wonpil feed him a wrap_?

But no, Wonpil didn't know that much, apparently. Thankfully. Younghyun folded it into his mouth himself, Wonpil watching him.

"Hey, Younghyun-hyung," said Jinyoung, interrupting the moment, "what is the meaning of this? Dowoonie's never had chicken nuggets?"

Mouth still full, Younghyun could only mime his uninvolvement in any dastardly Palace attempts at keeping His Majesty away from reconstituted, deep fried mystery meat.

Wonpil laughed and picked up a mushroom, biting off half of it in one go. Swallowing, he said, "We'll put it on the list of culturally significant experiences, Jinyoungie. Culturally significant."

"I've never really wanted them," Dowoon said thoughtfully, "but now I do."

"I can't believe you're talking about burgers when there's _samgyeopsal_ in front of you," Sungjin said. He was staunchly in favour of Corean food. Younghyun presumed his culinary skills were self-defence more than anything else.

"There's _more_?" Wonpil asked incredulously.

"Of course there is, the three of them are here." Jinyoung nodded at Jaebeom, who looked up with a bulging mouthful of food.

Much later, when all the eating was done and soju drunk — Prince Buyeong's wine left forgotten on the kitchen counter — and all their guests asleep in the sitting roomor Jinyoung's bed, Wonpil turned to Younghyun after they'd dragged an uncharacteristically drunk Dowoon through cleaning up and into bed.

"Did you have a good birthday, hyung?" He glanced back at the closed door behind him, smiling quicksilver and cheeky. "Other than having to drag my royal cousin's arse into bed."

Younghyun laughed; Dowoon wouldn't wake. He wanted to cup Wonpil's cheeks, flushed still with drink, to thumb at the soft, dark shadows under his shining eyes. He was just about sober enough to restrain himself.

"I did, thank you—!"

His breath abruptly left him as Wonpil thumped into him, squeezing him around the middle in a sudden hug.

"Happy birthday," Wonpil told Younghyun's collarbones. "I'm glad you had a good one, hyung."

Then before Younghyun could do anything — hug him back, process Wonpil's warm breath on his skin, _say_ something — Wonpil stepped back, and kept on going.

"Careful—" Younghyun twitched a hand out.

"Good night, hyung!" Wonpil chirped, looking anywhere but him, and turned to disappear down the stairs.

Younghyun blinked after him, mind still buzzing. He went to the bathroom. Showered. Cleaned his teeth. Found himself back in his room, where this day more like a dream had begun with a breakfast ambush. Put on a new set of pyjamas. Climbed into bed. Lay there, blinking up at the ceiling.

"What," he said to himself eventually, "the fuck just happened."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's basically winter here (or, well, it is what a London winter would be — give thanks for that gulf stream, isles of brit) so this is timely.
> 
> if this made you want to drink mulled cider or pay me to develop menus for other people to cook, please leave a kudos, comment and/or [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1317298236999241728)!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the london christmas edition of an anime beach filler episode

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, a summary by way of bysine's gdoc commentary (a selection):  
> \- hahaha HONESTLY dowoon yh is risking his LIFE for this just watch original TKEM  
> \- I can imagine the smell of 1000 lushes  
> \- THE DIARY/DOSSIER CAMEO!!!*  
> \- ahhh the JACKET  
> \- omg DOWOONIE EATING A CINNAMON BUN cannibalism
> 
> * from [chunmyeongok](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597997), in the scene where captain kang shows dowoon the corea!verse group photo.

The day after Dowoon graced the Corean Cultural Centre and its Solstice Street Soiree with his august presence, Wonpil dragged them up to Camden.

"We didn't manage it last year, but you've absolutely got to try one," he said. "It's a —"

"—cultural experience?" Younghyun finished drily.

"Well." Wonpil retrieved the general location of the market on his laptop and turned it to Younghun. "It _is_ one. And I haven't bought presents yet, for my family."

Dowoon's eyes lit up at the mention of presents, and so Younghyun resigned himself to having a series of very small conniptions in a crowded market. At least there'd be other guards around to share the pain.

They were dropped off with Sergeant Jung just beyond the bridge that arched over Camden Road, a few hundred metres away from the great metal gates that had been swung open. There were already a few other security agents on the bustling grounds, wooden stalls strung with fairy lights in a crescent along the plaza outside the complex that housed most of the market. And there was an underground warren too, from what Younghyun remembered of the plans: repurposed old stables. A security nightmare.

"Right, brunch first," said Wonpil, and took Dowoon by the arm. "Let's go."

He marched towards the stalls, and was promptly distracted by a stall hawking glass-blown baubles.

"Oh, pretty," Dowoon said softly, fingering one in the shape of a seashell. It was lightly frosted, with gold wires twisting in its hollow inside, and hung from a thin golden ribbon. "Would _chakeun-harabeoji_ like it? And _halmeoni_."

Turning to look, Wonpil's eyes went soft in the corners. "Of course they would. They always like more things to put on their tree."

"Oh, good." Dowoon bent to sift through the array of baubles on display, concentration in his brow; Wonpil watched him with that warm, fond look on his face for a while longer. When he looked up, he caught Younghyun's gaze and gave him a smile, as if to say _isn't our Dowoonie lovely_ , and went back to contemplating some windchimes hung from the low rafters of the stall.

"My younger sister would like those," Sergeant Jung remarked. When Younghyun glanced at him, he was still alertly scanning their surroundings.

"The windchimes, Sergeant?" Wonpil asked.

Sergeant Jung nodded. "Yes. Maybe yours would, too."

Wonpil made a thoughtful noise, reaching up to run his fingers gently along the glass pipes. They sounded like rippling water, wind whistling. Pretty. Shaking his head, Wonpil smiled wryly. "I think they'd remind her of playing the flute too much."

"Flute trauma," Younghyun said, shifting a little to shield Dowoon from the group of exuberant young people surging through the lane in between stalls. "Of course."

" _Noona_ has a love-hate relationship with the flute." Wonpil looked away from Younghyun when Dowoon accidentally elbowed him. "Yah! Oh, you're done, Dowoonie?"

Indeed, Dowoon was stuffing a paper bag of well-wrapped baubles from the stallholder into his coat pocket. It looked very undignified. It was adorable.

"I can't believe you got presents sorted before me." Wonpil scrunched his face up before it settled into a mein of determination. "Okay. Let's do this!"

They emerged on the other end of the crescent of stalls with artisanal soaps for Wonpil's noona and an assortment of fudge for his father; and a sherpa hat for Wonpil's noona's boyfriend Jack, who often complained about his head getting cold when he was working outdoors during the winter.

"You're very considerate, aren't you?" said the auntie running the stall. Wonpil ducked his head with a pretty little smile.

They proceeded to a second-hand bookstore that had aisles so narrow Sergeant Jung had some trouble, and stacks of books on the floor where they had spilt over from the creaking shelves. There, Wonpil found an old leather-bound copy of Austen second print for his grandfather but nothing to his satisfaction for anybody else.

"Noona'll go halfsies with me," Wonpil said when he looked at the price marked in pencil on the front endsheet and winced.

"I'll split it too, for _chakeun harabeoji_ ," offered Dowoon. "The decorations can be for _halmeoni_."

Wonpil beamed. "All right then, three ways makes it better. Let's go get food!"

Into crowded, winding passageways they went, smelling incense and food and just _people_.

"Why," muttered Sergeant Jung so that only Younghyun and everyone else on duty heard, "did Lieutenant Choi greenlight this."

Younghyun would have snarked back except he was occupied with intercepting the crepe before it got to Dowoon's mouth.

"Hyung," said Wonpil, "we watched him make it."

"No stone unturned," Younghyun told him, after letting the hot, buttery crepe sit in his mouth for a bit. The lemon juice wasn't fresh, but that was all that was wrong with the thing. He handed it over to Dowoon, who had on the pitiful face specifically for engendering sympathy from his cousin. " _Pyeha_ , please stop looking so persecuted."

"Are you going to taste _my_ crepe too?" Wonpil demanded, having received his strawberry and cream filled abomination. "Or is it all right if I just drop dead right here."

Fortunately they had moved on and avoided offending the nice man churning out crepes at the speed of light.

Younghyun sighed; Sergeant Jung looked much too entertained when he glanced at him.

He reached out. "I'll taste your crepe if you want."

Wonpil huddled over his snack. "No thank you, I'll take my chances."

They repeated this at the next stall with the mulled wine, and then the bakery stand for mince pies, and then when Dowoon pronounced himself ready for some real food and they had acquired roast hog sandwiches, Wonpil lost his patience.

"Hyung!" He stamped his foot. "You're just MAKING EXCUSES to eat OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD."

A bunch of student-aged people squeezing past the wine barrel they (Sergeant Jung) had staked out for a table startled, and glanced at them in passing.

"Is _that_ what it is," mused Dowoon, as he started in on his sandwich. It was, let the record show, only very slightly reduced.

Younghyun, who now had a quarter of his own sandwich occupying his mouth, made an inarticulate sound of outrage.

"It really is protocol, _daegam-nim_ ," Sergeant Jung said, taking pity. He was not eating, being amongst other things a devout Buddhist.

It was unfair, how that made Wonpil subside with minimal huffing.

"But—" Wonpil said a few moments later, having worked his way through a few bites. "But Sergeant, surely it's not just Younghyun who has to?"

"Well, no," replied Sergeant Jung. "But I don't eat meat and no longer have the metabolism of a young man."

"Oh," murmured Wonpil, and retreated into the rest of his lunch.

Younghyun should have known better than to think that would be the end of that. But it quickly transpired that the cousins had conspired to be utter annoyances. There was a statistically significant uptick in Dowoon saying "that looks nice" and pointing at some treat or other, having seemed to found a second stomach.

"I could help," said Wonpil to Younghyun, who really wasn't that fond of sweets.

Sergeant Jung snorted almost inaudibly. Younghyun was sure his face was stuck in a rictus of pain as he tried not to point out loud in public that Wonpil, too, was as much royalty as his cousin. Royal pains, too.

"Don't you have presents to buy?" he asked instead.

Wonpil evidently _had_ forgotten. "Oh!" His eyes went round, and he clutched Dowoon by the upper arm. Dowoon, mouth full of chocolate, garbled out a _What_?

"We have to go — upstairs, that way. Presents!"

With that, he took off towards the set of stairs on the other end of the passage they were in. Dowoon was being dragged along behind him, Younghyun and Sergeant Jung scrambling to flank them.

Their destination was a shop on the second floor of the gallery, stocked with handmade paper and leather products. It smelt like Wonpil and Jinyoung's bathroom after one of them had had a bath with one of Jinyoung's noona's bath bombs. Sergeant Jung sneezed discreetly into an elbow.

"Yes," said Sergeant Ok, speaking for the first time into their earpieces. "I sneezed too when scoping out the shop."

Sergeant Jung sneezed again in response.

"Oh dear," said Wonpil dolefully. "You could wait outside?"

"Thank you for the offer, _daegam-nim_ ," said Sergeant Jung. "I will join you again when you are finished."

"It's too narrow in here anyway," Younghyun explained when Sergeant Jung had left to go loiter outside the entrance. "And this shop is very small."

Wonpil hummed absently in acknowledgement as he browsed the shelves.

"These are nice." Dowoon picked up a hide-bound journal filled with graph paper cut down to size. "Noona would like this. For her lab notes."

The leather was buttery-soft when Younghyun touched it. "Isn't it too nice for that hazard zone?"

"Well, maybe for ideas or something. I wonder if there's a set ..." Dowoon wandered away to the front of the shop, Younghyun shadowing him hurriedly.

When Dowoon had finished his transaction, they found Wonpil by the display of fountain pens on the long table splitting the shop. He looked up with a considering look in his eyes.

"These do write nicely, once you have the trick of it."

"It's very old school," Younghyun agreed. "Retro. I used to have one, from my _eomma_ 's old supply. It was fun."

"Really?" Wonpil looked strangely pleased. "Oh, good. And you're always writing in that diary of yours, anyway."

Pained, he said, "It's a dossier." Then, cottoning on — "Wait, Wonpil-ah —"

"If you like," Wonpil was already saying, sweetly indulgent, before sweeping off with the pen and a pot of ink to the cashier.

"Is he always like that?" asked Sergeant Jung, who had joined them. Even though he had been on detail several times for pints down at The King's Arms, the guards generally kept a respectful distance.

"Like what?"

Sergeant Jung visibly searched for words. "He talks like my nephew's kindergarten teacher."

"Oh." Younghyun thought about it. "Sometimes."

"He doesn't talk like that with Jinyoung-hyung," Dowoon put in, "maybe because they're _chingus_."

"I'm older than he is," sighed Younghyun.

"What're you lot whispering about," Wonpil demanded as they joined him by the cashier. He was trying to carefully fit an oblong box for the pen, the bottle of ink, and a gorgeous notebook with a brass clasp (for his grandmother to compose her poems in) into his sling bag.

Displacing the fountain pen box and ink bottle from Wonpil's hands into his own coat pockets, Younghyun said, "Nothing," at the same time Dowoon traitorously said, "You, hyung."

"Oh." Wonpil went pink, eyes darting to Younghyun and away. "Well. I want a snack, don't you? Or a drink. I'm thirsty! Let's go get a drink. The food hall's just down that way."

He bustled off, zipping his bag hurriedly shut and leaving the cashier smirking at Younghyun. The gleam in those eyes was unsettlingly knowing.

"No present for your young man? We _have_ got a Christmas discount going," said the cashier, who looked like Brian May's long lost twin.

"He's not —" Younghyun stopped at the twin raised eyebrows and Dowoon's buried laugh. "Yah!" He turned to Dowoon.

"We'll just go after _daegam_ first," said Sergeant Jung carefully. "I'll tell you where we are."

Beaming beatifically, Not Brian May said, "Is there anything that would suit?"

Giving up, Younghyun said, "Do you have any manuscript paper? Like, with those lines, for writing music."

"Oh, dating a musician, are you? How lovely. And yes, we do — all our paper's handmade here in the traditional style, very fine weight. Would you like a leather wallet of unbound sheets, or a book? The wallet's fifty-five quid and the book's thirty."

"...the book?" Younghyun winced at the judgemental frown not Brian May gave him. "I'm a student!"

Leaning in, Not Brian May whispered, "Look, we've got a student discount too, and technically I'm not supposed to do two at once, but you know — if you'd take a bit of romantic advice from an old —"

"Okay, okay," Younghyun said hurriedly, "the wallet, the wallet."

"Lovely." Not Brian May was all smiles again, bagging up Younghyun's extremely impulsive and irresponsible purchase. "That sweet lad of yours will be delighted."

Younghyun paid hastily and fled, feeling like his head was on fire.

He had cooled a little by the time he found the rest of his party, and was almost hopeful that they would go home and he could have a nap, when Wonpil said, "Oh, but I must show Dowoonie the Stables too."

Down into the cool Stables they went, then, though more rapidly this time. Dowoon mostly rubbernecked, but didn't show much interest until they strolled past a stall selling vintage jackets. Well, he wasn't much interested anyway, but Wonpil had stopped — so he had too.

"Let's have a look," said Wonpil, and dove into the rails.

Younghyun stood at the head of an aisle, keeping half an eye on Dowoon, who was himself eyeing another bakery stand just around the curve up ahead of them. He had developed a prodigious appetite just this day. Perhaps it was the chill down here.

"Oh, hyung! This would fit you, I think!" Wonpil called from another rail over — _when_ had he got there? "Hyung, come here!"

Sergeant Jung melted back out of the crowds; Dowoon perked up and gestured him along to the bakery stall.

Summarily left behind, Younghyun went to Wonpil.

"You were looking at these for me?"

"Not necessarily." Wonpil flapped the jacket he'd taken off at him. "Try it on!"

Younghyun looked at the jacket, black and a little faded with age and care. It had a practical number of pockets, silvery zips untarnished by time running down the front panels, wide lapels studded with equally silvery buttons.

It did, he had to admit, rather appeal.

Well, he'd already bought Wonpil a ridiculously expensive present. What was a little more indulgence? Putting thoughts of fernbrakes, edicts, _et al_ out of his mind, he took the jacket and shrugged it on.

"Oh," Wonpil said softly, reaching out for a brief moment. His hands dropped to his sides. Then he twisted his fingers together. "You look well f— it fits very nicely."

Dowoon popped up at the top of the aisle munching on a cinnamon bun. "Wow! Hyung! You look so cool!"

Younghyun looked at himself in the tall mirror affixed to the front of an antique wardrobe that was possibly for sale.

He did like the way that the jacket made his shoulders look broader, the fit of it close without being constricting, and the way it felt soft and warm in the chill of this underground warren. The lining, when he tugged the jacket close to test the zip, was silkily luxurious and caught against his callouses.

Shrugging it off, Younghyun looked at the price tag and almost gagged.

"This is very nice," he said carefully, "but a little out of my budget."

"Oh." Wonpil looked crestfallen. "Well, I mean —"

"No, Wonpil-ah, you've already got me a present."

"But—"

"Stop thinking about it." Younghyun slipped the jacket back onto a hanger. It was a bit of a wrench, but he wasn't made of money. "Hey, Dowoon-ah, where'd you get that cinnamon bun again?"

Wonpil followed him to the stand, still pouting a little.

"Why do you look more upset about this than me?" Younghyun couldn't help but laugh, wishing direly that he could just chuck Wonpil under the chin the way he really wanted to.

Mouth contracting further, Wonpil muttered, "It just was a really good jacket."

"You're turning into Sungjin-hyung," he teased. "Come on, I'll let you share a bun with me."

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a woolly zip-up jumper on, guys, it's time to get my Christmas on. (no, I do not celebrate halloween; I do not come from a country that celebrates halloween; I do not understand any of the festivities or the enthusiasm for it. beltain, though, I can get behind.)
> 
> and yes, that is indeed [The Jacket](https://64.media.tumblr.com/efd061fed1cfd57e53735093ab4bfa0a/61553b59c649ac54-95/s1280x1920/b9f7528fb32cce4562474b84ac2b1f118ac8b821.jpg), which apparently [just belongs to Wonpil](https://video.twimg.com/tweet_video/Ek7JgsSUcAAehts.mp4) now? (alsowik, everyday I wither away a little about younghyun fills out the jacket and wonpil ... does not)
> 
> if this made you wish we could go to christmas markets again and not worry about anything other than how the hell you're going to hold your cup of mulled wine AND everything else you want to eat ... let me know and [also retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1319828039589646336), thanks for all the fish.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A [volta](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/volta).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man idk guys american friends please vote for biden & the democrats on your local ballots.
> 
> and now: for more Christmas hols, because I have a disease.

A pause, at this juncture.

Rewind.

Younghyun's first Christmas in London; his twenty-first birthday; his inadvertent turn as career counsellor. The realisation then: that he marked Wonpil's life just as Wonpil did his.

The signs were clear when unfolded from memory: what he had obscured from himself then. Out of necessity, or foolhardiness, or some futile instinct for self-preservation.

But it was obvious in retrospect -- poor, young, unwise Younghyun.

They had been like slow drifting tectonic plates carried across currents in the magma of the undeniable force drawing them together from the start. The irregular borders of their lives met, caught against each other, built pressure.

Now: one small break.

Younghyun, throwing caution to the wind, thought perhaps to sink into whatever sweetness they could have, caught between oath and edict as they were. But the course of converging plates never did run smooth.

Ever since then, he -- they? -- had been caught in the subduction of whatever this was, the tremors of which would ripple far into the future.

*

They had their own house Christmas before everybody split up for the holidays.

Younghyun's parents were in Prague, and he had been given a few days off to spend the days from Christmas to New Year's with them. Lieutenant Choi had waved off his protests and enquired pointedly if he had so little faith in his colleagues. Not wanting a demonstrative thumping at the hands of Sergeant Jung, Younghyun had gratefully accepted the leave.

There was a duck — prepared so that all they had to do was stick it in the oven along with parboiled potatoes. Easy enough. Jinyoung, inspired, had decided to try and make parsnips and carrots, and Sungjin had taken over after five minutes of watching Jinyoung try to peel them.

"Is Jaebeom-sshi coming?" Dowoon asked. He was sitting at the end of the kitchen table, where he had been assigned the very safe task of looking up what to do with the ham in the hamper from Wonpil's grandfather. Wonpil had made the mistake of mentioning to him at tea that they'd be having their own party. General opinion was tilting towards frying it up with kimchi.

"We'll need more food if he is," said Wonpil drily.

"He might be," Jinyoung said. "I think he's in the studio. I've told him to bring food if he does come. He might bring _mandu_."

"I like mandu!" Dowoon brightened. "Tell him to come."

"Well, if His Majesty says so," said Jinyoung sarcastically.

Jaebeom did turn up in the end, royally mandated mandu in one hand and a discounted box of Christmas crackers in the other.

"Very multicultural," said Jinyoung and kissed him on the cheek.

"It was half off," Jaebeom said with as much satisfaction as Younghyun's auntie did whenever she found a really good deal.

Younghyun told Jaebeom as much, and hid a smile when he saw Wonpil's dissatisfied pout out of the corner of his eye. He would never have believed Wonpil was capable of holding a grudge, if he didn't live with Wonpil's bizarre vendetta against Jaebeom.

With Jaebeom's stomach in play, they managed to polish off all the food in good time, and migrated up to the sitting room where everyone watched Younghyun light a fire from the loose circle they had made around the fireplace.

Dowoon was on the floor, lying unregally on his stomach next to Wonpil, who was sat cross-legged. Jinyoung had claimed an armchair and sat half atop Jaebeom; Sungjin, by pure dint of age seniority, had the other. Or something. He had given Dowoon a pained look, before relaxing into cushions broken in by at least a century worth of bums.

"Secret Santa!" Wonpil clapped his hands. "Quickly, before I fall asleep."

For they had rediscovered the bottle of wine from Prince Buyeong sitting in the shelf over the microwave, and decided to open it; Wonpil, who'd had precisely one glass too many, was already listing a little to his left, an elbow planted squarely in the middle of Dowoon's royal back.

"Dowoonie can go first," declared Jinyoung, "seeing as he's the youngest."

"Is that how it works?" Dowoon enquired curiously.

Jinyoung shrugged both expansively and tipsily. "Does it matter?"

"It's all downhill from here," said Sungjin comfortably. "So if everyone else is all right with being disappointed..."

It depended, if you asked Younghyun, because Dowoon had picked Jinyoung a few weeks ago, and the most terrifyingly shit-eating grin had flashed across his face. He'd refused to tell Younghyun what he was getting, even when Younghyun had tried the whole 'security check' routine on him.

Dowoon rolled over to the Christmas tree in the corner next to the window and retrieved a long, tube-shaped package that had absolutely been wrapped by someone at the embassy.

"Here you go, hyung," Dowoon said. That shit-eating grin back and barely suppressed. The look of mischief that he sent Younghyun as he passed the package over to Jinyoung made Younghyun flash back to the afternoon of conniptions at Camden Market.

When Younghyun glanced over to Wonpil, the look on _his_ face matched the trepidation Younghyun was feeling. So this _wasn't_ a cousinly conspiracy.

Jinyoung tore past the giftwrap and popped the lid off. He was carefully easing a rolled up —

"Oh my god," Jinyoung whispered.

Poster. It was a poster, and Younghyun suddenly knew down to his bones what that was a poster of, because — because Dowoon was barely concealing his laughter at this point.

"Dowoonie!" Wonpil wailed, having evidently arrived at the same conclusion, just as Jinyoung unfurled the 2015 Gyeongbokgung Seollal Greetings From His Majesty poster in one great shake. "Why!"

"It's a test copy." Butter wouldn't _melt_ in that cheeky brat's royal mouth. "I just noticed that Jinyoung-hyung's poster is fading."

"Let it fade! Fucking hell, Dowoonie!"

"And I just did a new photo series for the upcoming holidays, so it just seemed right, really."

Jinyoung was now scrutinising the poster; under him, Jaebeom looked bemused and uncertain if he ought to be jealous.

"Oh my god, I _knew_ they photoshopped your eyebrows." Jinyoung let the poster roll back into a scroll and cradled it semi-jokingly to himself. "Fuck it, you lot, I'm changing citizenship. Queen Liz could _never_."

Younghyun put his face in his hands and tried to let the heat of the fire at his back relax him, even as Dowoon burst out laughing properly.

"I think you've broken Younghyun-hyung," Wonpil said mournfully. "Look what you've done now."

"Actually —" Dowoon managed to get out between snickers. "— I can make up for it. Hyung, look."

Out from under the armchair that Sungjin was slowly becoming one with, Dowoon retrieved a soft, squashy package wrapped in brown parcel paper.

"When did you hide that there?" Wonpil sounded impressed.

"Why does he get a special extra present?" Jinyoung demanded, before shaking his head. "Oh, never mind, of course Mister Loyal Shadow would."

Sungjin passed the package to Younghyun, a considering look on his face as he weighed it.

"Oh," gasped Wonpil, when Younghyun ripped the paper apart. "It's —"

"You seemed to like it a lot, hyung," Dowoon mumbled shyly in a way that would surely send his elocution tutors of yore into fits. "So, well, I had Sergeant Jung circle back around to buy it."

Wordless, Younghyun shrugged the leather jacket on. It was exactly as buttery soft and comfortable as he remembered.

Sungjin squinted approvingly and then, leaning forward and flicking his lapel open, had raptures over the silk lining.

"Oh my," murmured Jinyoung. His eyebrows were raised and he spoke with a milder, more sincere version of the sarcastically over-the-top lechery he usually directed at Younghyun whenever Younghyun started doing his calisthenics in the sitting room whilst Jinyoung was trying to study.

Jaebeom looked between them and sulked a little. "Where'd you get that?"

"Camden," said Dowoon. "Somewhere underground. Hyungie took us there last week. Wonpilie-hyung, I mean."

 _"Pyeha_ ," Younghyun said at last, touched to the quick.

Dowoon frowned. "No, not _pyeha_."

Younghyun gave him an apologetic look. "Thank you, Dowoon-ah. This is ... a great present."

"It'll keep you warm in Prague," Wonpil said cheerfully. But his pupils were a little dilated, his eyes fixed upon Younghyun abstractly, before seeming to shake himself out of it, glancing away with a faint blush not entirely from wine.

The jacket might be more than just a great present, Younghyun thought.

"All right." Jinyoung sat up abruptly and tapping his spoon against his mug. "I'm next, and my victim is Sungjin-hyung. Let's get on with it, shall we? Younghyun's got a flight to catch tomorrow and his parents will be upset if he misses it."

*

Younghyun returned from Prague laden down with souvenirs to find Dowoon thankfully unscathed from Christmas with his madcap relatives. Apparently the presence of Yeeun-noona's boyfriend, who'd been invited to meet the family for the first time before she herself spent New Year's with his, had been enough of a distraction from a mere cousin, King or no.

He wondered how this Jack had dealt with meeting the King of Corea, though he thought Dowoon might've been the least intimidating prospect in comparison to Buyeong- _daegam_ or either of Wonpil's parents.

"He survived," said Wonpil lightly. " _Harabeoji_ adores him, because Jack will actually listen to him bang on about Regency literature."

"We slept in the solarium," Dowoon told him excitedly whilst crunching his way through the Czech biscuits Younghyun had got in a random grocery store. "After stargazing."

"We should have a sleepover here too," Wonpil said. "In the sitting room. It'll be a laugh."

"All right," Dowoon decided, smiling so bright and pleased Younghyun couldn't find it in himself to dissuade either of them. "Let's do this! Tonight! Hyung, do you want to join us?"

Younghyun respectfully declined, even as he was helping to excavate spare mattress pads from storage and move furniture.

"Are you quite sure you don't want to join us?" Wonpil put his hands on his hips and surveyed the cleared space in front of the fireplace. "There's lots of room. _And_ it's supposed to snow tonight."

"I wish we were at _chakeun-harabeoji's_ for the snow," Dowoon said wistfully.

Wonpil hummed. "It does stick better in the countryside. Suppose we could get the last train --" he dissolved into hiccuping giggles at the look on Younghyun's face. "Jokes, jokes!"

"Wonpil-ah," Younghyun said, fighting to keep a straight face, "have mercy."

Jinyoung, who'd come home from Reading to this tableau, rolled his eyes behind Wonpil's back and gave Younghyun a terrifyingly knowing look.

"You might have to keep an eye on us then," Wonpil said cheerily, "or we might steal away in the middle of the night."

"If it snows hard you won't get anywhere," Younghyun pointed out. "Also, I like my bed too much."

Wonpil frowned -- nay, pouted -- before spotting his best friend. "Jinyoungie...?"

"With all due respect," said Jinyoung, "I am _not_ having a slumber party with my housemate the King of Corea."

Younghyun ended up being wrangled into joining the royal cousins for most of the night, in any case. It was hard to say no, when Dowoon looked so relaxed and happy. It wasn't as though Younghyun hadn't been a child himself, back then, but who would want to take this away? These echoes of a more innocent Dowoonie who didn't walk around with grief stowed away in the depths of his mind, who didn't need an indulgent, affectionate hyung to unlock the mischief that had been secreted away with that same sorrow.

And then there was, of course, said hyung himself — Wonpil holding the forest-green bottle of Becherovka up to the firelight with a simple delight in the small, epicurean pleasures of life, cajoling him into joining them for at least a night cap.

One Bechton turned into another, clementine skins piling up in a corner as Wonpil absently peeled them and sing-talked ludicrous commentary Younghyun and Dowoon play a very competitive game of Corean jacks.

"You really haven't played this before?" Dowoon asked.

"I suspect _halmeoni_ wanted to avoid bloodshed in the household." There was a knowing little smirk on Wonpil's face when Younghyun looked up at him, a twist of mischief that twisted in his gut. "You've met _noona_ , you know what she's like."

"Yeeun-gongju sounds terrifying," said Younghyun.

Dowoon flipped the jacks off the back of his hand and caught exactly one less than he was meant to. He groaned and flopped onto his back, barely missing braining himself on the scuttle. Unperturbed, even as Younghyun hastily reached over to move the old brass thing out of range, Dowoon said, "She's very nice to _me_."

Wonpil harrumphed. "Only because you're so cute."

"Do you want to try?" Younghyun asked, sweeping the jacks into a pile in front of Wonpil.

The long hand on the old clock next to fireplace made another half-trip around its face, whilst they discovered that Wonpil's coordination on the keys did not exactly translate to jacks.

"I can do it!" Wonpil cried. "Just watch me!"

But as he tossed a jack high in a desperate attempt to sweep the rest up, something caught his eye.

"Snow!" he shouted delightedly, scrambling to his feet and over to the window.

They drew back the curtains. The night sky was indeed bright with snow, fat flakes of it drifting down from the grey-indigo sky, illuminated under the shafts of golden light from the streetlamps.

"This is so rare," Wonpil breathed, face turned up in wonder. "Did you bring the snow with you from Prague?"

 _Just for you_ , Younghyun managed not to say, closing his lips on a non-committal hum.

"State secret." Dowoon gave Younghyun a mischievous look. "It's hyung's superpower."

Wonpil snorted, and took his eyes off the falling snow outside to poke Dowoon. " _That's_ not Younghyun's superpower, don't be ridiculous."

Younghyun opened his mouth, shut it.

"Do you want to go outside to play in the snow?" Wonpil went on, apparently unconcerned with the turmoil he'd just set off. "Look, it's sticking on the pavement!"

"We do get snow in Busan..." Dowoon said reluctantly. "And we're already in our pyjamas..."

To his relief, Wonpil agreed, and they settled instead for hot chocolate (doctored), an absolutely absurd old British comedy Wonpil said was _culturally significant_ on the television, and making Younghyun tell them more stories about his adventures in Prague.

"I want to go," Wonpil whined; brushing his teeth seemed to have put him straight into sleepiness. He traced a finger over the photo of Younghyun and his parents outside the Dvorak museum. "His music's always so fun to play. A music tour would be such fun. Germany, Prague, Vienna ... Spain."

"Spain?"

Wonpil smiled up at Younghyun through the curls falling over his eyes. "Their regional music is beautiful. Flamenco! And ... oh, I forget — the one with the bagpipes!"

Having been subject to random bagpipers piping Christmas carols outside the Waitrose, Younghyun fell back on his blankest face.

Laughing, Wonpil swatted at his arm. "Don't give me that face — it's lovely! And you know, something a little different to wrap it all up would be nice."

"I want to go to Spain," announced Dowoon from where he was mostly buried in his pile of blankets. "They have a monarchy."

"I'm fairly certain your diplomatic overtures are not limited to just constitutional monarchies, _pyeha_."

"Dowoonie does seem to mostly go see other monarchs, though. Though you did go to Paris last year, didn't you?"

"It's a conspiracy. Then ... should I invent diplomatic relations with the Czech Republic?" Dowoon sat up, as though he were about to get on the phone to Busan.

 _"Pyeha_ ," Younghyun said, pained. "Please."

Wonpil laughed quiet and sleepy at them from where he'd shrunk into his sleeping bag and curled up on his side. The yellow throw he favoured peeped out from where the bag was unzipped. "It's funny when you _pyeha_ Dowoonie like this."

"It's how hyung lets me know he's annoyed," Dowoon said with some satisfaction.

"'s why it's funny."

Over the sound of Dowoon's spluttering, Wonpil yawned loud and big — it looked like his mouth would take over half his face.

"Look at you," said Younghyun, a little softer than he intended. "How would you have snuck out of the house like this."

"Mmm." Wonpil blinked stickily up at him. "We'd've managed. Somehow."

"I'm sure."

"Oh ye o —" Wonpil yawned hugely — "o-o-of little fai —" he yawned again, so wide his eyes closed. "Faith. I'll ..." What he would do, however, was lost to a fuzzy mumble and his mouth went slack.

"I think it was the whiskey we put into the last hot chocolate," Dowoon whispered as they watched Wonpil literally fall asleep in front of them. "Hyung's tolerance is so bad."

Younghyun tore his eyes away from the heat-warm sleep flush on Wonpil's face, the relaxed curve of his mouth. "It is," he agreed unthinkingly. "Well. I'm going up now. Good night, Dowoon-ah. Please don't run away when I'm sleeping."

Grinning up at him, Dowoon shuffled back nto his nest of blankets and cheerfully said, "No promises."

Wonpil snuffled and turned over onto his other side, away from the glow of the drop lamp overhead.

"Night, hyung," Dowoon said. "I'll get the light when you're gone."

Funny, Younghyun thought, how Dowoon took care of his older cousin. Sweet and a little sad.

"Okay," he said. "Night."

*

It had stopped snowing when Younghyun's alarm woke him up.

Drills at the embassy could not be put off, no matter how crummy the weather or how enticingly warm his bed. He was not convinced that Captain Choi (promoted effective of the new year for presumably managing not to off himself or the teenagers under his charge) himself wouldn't personally come and toss him out of bed.

"Coffee," Younghyun croaked to himself, and dragged himself out of his covers.

Clutching his thermos and patting himself down for all the essentials: keys, phone, security pass, Younghyun padded past the living room.

This early in the morning, it was as quiet as expected behind the shut door.

Unable to resist, though, Younghyun carefully eased the door open and peeked in.

What his heart did then couldn't be psychosomatic; it felt so visceral, this strange twisting squeeze.

The fire had died down and there was a slight chill to the air; the ancient radiators lining the wall under the windows pumped out heat to the best of their ability but still not quite enough. Younghyun was so damn sick of the _cold_.

But — perhaps because of the cold — Wonpil had rolled in his sleeping bag cocoon across his mattress to bump up against his cousin, arms improbably thrown up over his head; Dowoon was on his side and with his face half buried in plush throw. It was only a split-second's thought; Younghyun edged his way in through the gap in the doorway to pull a blanket up to Wonpil's chin.

Wonpil didn't stir at all; his fingers curled a little and relaxed, like he was playing piano in his sleep, but his face remained slack and his breathing wheezily even. His sinuses again, probably. His stubble had grown in overnight, and his curls were in absolute disarray.

In the dimness barely leavened by the watery post-snow winter light, Younghyun found himself caught in contemplation.

More than any of the times Wonpil leaned against him tipsily; or smiled that lovely coy thing when it seemed the world had narrowed to just them two; or blushed at him coming back from a run; or quietly arranged things so that his life would be that tiniest bit better —

More than any of these things, it was seeing him so vulnerable next to the cousin he treated like a cross between little brother and beloved child, that made Younghyun exhale and close his eyes against the surge of affection through him, sweeter than wine.

He wanted just to stay.

He wanted to wake Wonpil, wanted to steal a sleepily unguarded and affectionate morning with him out of all the mornings he had left in London. He wanted to impress all the hallmarks of a barely awake Wonpil deeper in the pages of his memory: that nest of curls and barely open eyes over his customary mug of tea before he'd truly woken up; the sweet buzz of his sleep-chewed murmurs; the way he shuffled his feet lethargically.

"You're cute," he murmured, since nobody was awake to hear.

Then he went to drill away the desire to say this to Wonpil's face, to let the beating of his heart in his ears and the rush of cold air against his face and the acid building in his legs drown all other thought out.

It didn't quite work, though.

When he got back, the cousins had just woken up. Wonpil stared him for a long minute as he toed his training shoes off in the vestibule and hung his coat up. Maybe Younghyun was still caught in that stolen, possibly creepy moment earlier that morning, because he let himself look back, take in the sleepy soft attention trained upon him.

Perhaps it was this, then, that inspired Younghyun a few mornings later.

This, and all the moments that had come before.

*

They were alone in the kitchen; Younghyun waiting for the leftover jjigae to warm up in the microwave, Wonpil making himself tea.

Or, well, trying to. They'd run out of teabags and Wonpil was staring despairingly at the empty tin.

"On the first day of term, too?" Wonpil asked the kettle he'd already put on.

Rather daringly, Younghyun pressed up behind him to get a new box down from the upper shelves, slightly beyond Wonpil's reach, pressing a hand into the counter edge next to Wonpil's hip.

"What—" Wonpil turned around, hazily undercaffeinated. His eyes went wide when Younghyun came back down from his tip-toes and they were chest to chest.

"Sorry about that." Younghyun took a step back and proffered the fresh box of tea, fairly certain the smile on his face was less suave and more panicked now that exactly what he'd done was hitting him. His heart fell a little; there was something rather like fear skirting the shock in Wonpil's eyes.

He took another two steps back. The kettle whistled. The microwave dinged.

Wonpil blinked rapidly, and the scared look melted away as though it hadn't been there at all.

"We have chairs for standing on," he said, but pink dusted his cheeks and the tops of his ears.

"Yeah, well." Younghyun shook the box in his hand. "Your, um, tea."

After an almost negligible hesitation, Wonpil took it from him. "Thanks, hyung. Do you want one too?"

Younghyun relaxed, then, and sat down at the kitchen table. "I'm all right, thanks. Had a coffee earlier, before showering."

Even though Wonpil's back was turned, Younghyun could just about see the grimace that accompanied his words: "Ugh, you and your morning runs. Horrible."

"You were the one getting up earlier than _me_ for weeks, last term."

Teaspoon clinking against his travel mug as he stirred in milk and sugar, Wonpil turned around. "It wasn't every day. And it wasn't like I had a choice."

Younghyun shrugged and leaned back, letting himself smile as lazily as he wanted. This felt a little like his birthday, like the precious hour or two he had taken of Wonpil's time in the pub. "I don't, either. Evenings are ... not always free."

"Mmm." Wonpil frowned down at his tea. He took a sip and exhaled a long satisfied sigh. "I suppose that makes sense. Do you at least enjoy it? Running?"

Surprised, Younghyun let out a bark of laughter. "I ... uh. I don't know?" Wonpil was forever asking him questions that pushed his world slightly off-kilter. "It's good for me. Keeps me in shape for ... my work."

Wonpil looked at him through the steam rising from his uncovered mug, still raised to his face. "Just for your work?"

This time, it was sheepishness that propelled his laugh. And the urge to fidget, or massage the back of his neck. Younghyun wished he'd accepted that offer of tea, now. He rested his elbows back on the table instead, trying to project more confidence than he felt.

"Well," he said, aiming for teasing, "that and hauling you up the stairs when you're drunk."

" _Hyung!_ " protested Wonpil, wiggling in the way that meant he wanted to hide. "I'm not -- you don't have to --"

"I don't mind it." Younghyun got up to retrieve his breakfast, which had gone momentarily forgotten. "Honestly."

The pout in Wonpil's voice was audible when he acquiesced. "Fine. Thank you anyway."

Younghyun sent him a sidelong smile. "You're very welcome."

The jjigae was warm enough; the rice he'd shoved in next to it still steamed gently. Satisfied, he carried the bowls over to the kitchen table.

"That looks so nice," sighed Wonpil, screwing the top onto his travel mug and retrieving a bun from the bread bin. "Hot breakfasts, what're those like?"

Younghyun looked up, swallowing the spoonful of jjigae and rice he'd just put into mouth. "You have to go now?"

"I should've been gone five minutes ago." Wonpil gave him a severe look. "But _someone_ was distracting me."

"Sorry," said Younghyun insincerely. He held out a spoonful of jjigae. "Redress?"

Again -- that hint of surprise, a flutter of his eyelashes, a certain slackening of his face. Then Wonpil ducked in, mumbled a garbled " _Thanks, hyung_ ," around the spoon, and hurried out and up the stairs.

Younghyun was still smiling to himself when Dowoon thundered into the kitchen a while later, fully dressed and with his backpack on, ten minutes before they had to leave.

"What's that look on your face, hyung?" he asked, while rooting around in the fridge for kimbap. Someone would probably help him get coffee on the way to his lecture.

"Just a good morning," said Younghyun, getting up to soak his bowls in the sink. "That's all."

*

So it came to be that in the second January of Younghyun's sojourn in London, a tacit understanding bloomed between himself and Wonpil.

That's what it felt like, anyway.

Wonpil woke up a little earlier to banter sleepily over breakfast. Younghyun satisfied himself with tugging Wonpil's beanies further down his ears, fingers lingering only a breath away from cupping his jaw. If they were studying in the same room, Wonpil would sit very close. Younghyun forgot himself -- let himself forget -- most of the time when they were watching something on the television and would come out of a drama-induced haze to find that he'd draped an arm across Wonpil's shoulders.

Jinyoung gave them significant looks over his books, but never said anything aloud. Not in Younghyun's hearing, in any case.

"Let me try something," Wonpil said one evening, and pulled Younghyun over to the piano with him. "For coursework."

What proceeded could best be described as an exercise in futility.

He attempted to teach Younghyun how to read music, and to play a basic scale, and kept muttering to himself at intervals and marking up a bullet-pointed sheet of foolscap clipped to a binder by his right.

Perhaps, Younghyun wanted to point out, having a less distractible student/test subject would be better.

How was he supposed to retain anything, anyway, when Wonpil was holding his hand by the wrist in the air and making him flop his fingers into some claw shape. And then giving up and just trying to mould his hand into the apparent appropriate shape on the keys. His fingers were long and slender and cool against Younghyun's own.

"No, hyung," Wonpil said again, pressing a thumb to the inside of Younghyun's wrist, right under his tripping pulse. "Don't drop your wrists like that."

"This feels weird," Younghyun murmured, but raised his wrists anyway.

The piano bench was not really made for two full-grown men to share; their thighs were pressed together and Wonpil leaned so close sometimes Younghyun got a noseful of his cologne. Then his brain would hiccup and all resources would have to be diverted to restraining himself from just sticking his face unceremoniously into the sweet curve of Wonpil's neck.

"Hyung," Wonpil was saying, "play this note on your right hand. In the middle."

Younghyun shook himself out of the daze and stared at the manuscript sheet on the ledge. The pencilled in note was on the bottom-most line of the stave.

He looked down at the keys, an indistinguishable row of blocks in white and black.

He knew, vaguely, that they came in sets, and each set was broken into two because of the two white keys that were next to each other. He also knew that Wonpil hadn't had him playing any of the black keys yet.

Praying hard, he hit one white key and looked hopefully at Wonpil.

Wonpil stared back at him at point blank range, and then frothed over with sudden giggles. His cheeks, Younghyun noticed, were pink and his lashes very thick. When Wonpil laughed, his wide mouth looked like a very squashed heart.

"Wonpil-ah," said Younghyun. "Don't laugh at the hopeless. It's cruel."

"No you're not!" Wonpil straightened up from his habitual slouch, eyes flashing. "Didn't you say you played the -- some brass instrument for a bit in middle school?"

"Ah, well." Younghyun demurred. "That was for only about a year and a bit. And I just memorised what to press."

Wonpil stared at him, before shaking his head. "That honestly sounds harder than just cribbing off a score."

Younghyun shrugged and leaned back on his hands. "Patterns. Just like _poomsae_."

"Poom- _what_?"

Younghyun slid off the bench to demonstrate. "This is a _poomsae_. Like a ... a form. It's taekwondo. Well. One school of it. I had several teachers and they all argued."

"Your life is so weird," said Wonpil solemnly, but he was smiling a little. "You look so happy, thinking of being pummelled. _Poom_ -elled."

"Ha very ha." Younghyun paused and thought about it. "I'm not -- they just made it fun, I guess. The older Guards. Because I was so -- I mean, even the youngest corporal is at least nineteen."

Younghyun realised then that he'd never really talked about his time training to someone else before.

His mother only worried about his injuries; his father had also been his Captain; and ... there hadn't been anyone. Dowoon just looked askance, big-eyed, at his bruises, but said nothing whenever they hung out. And it had felt like it would be showing off, in school. Everyone only thought of the Guards as a cool job. Nobody else would've understood why he wanted to protect Dowoon; they only ever saw the solemn boy king in the annual telecasts.

Wonpil must have heard some of this in his tone, because he canted his head like a curious bird, before abruptly pulling his feet up onto the bench and swivelling. He shut the piano lid, wrapped his arms around his knees, and leaned his chin into the dip between them. The impromptu lesson, Younghyun surmised, was over.

"Tell me more," Wonpil said, still with that smile on his face. He sounded as warm and sweet as _yeot_. "Tell me about teenaged Kang Younghyun and his adventures with the Guard."

So Younghyun straddled the bench, an elbow on the piano lid, their heads bent close together, as he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shoutout to several long-suffering RL friends for being my 'does this description of someone who can't read a score or play piano or generally music look accurate to you' sounding boards. 
> 
> a long chapter this time round because ... I wanted to take my time with illustrating the ... the developments, I guess! it's gotta be *whispers* (jyp) orGANiC. 
> 
> and one last plea: american friends! please if you are able! go out and vote (for biden. and the democrats.) if you haven't! THE WORLD DEPENDS ON THIS. i wish we weren't so affected but! hey, alas, we are.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A crisis narrowly averted, Younghyun eats his grapes, and certain realities hit for Wonpil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter MONTHS ago, probably. Very excited to be posting it!

Worse than the ache in his slowly reknitting flesh or the itch of skin healing together, was seeing Wonpil burst white-faced into the hospital room trailed by Corporal Yang and Sergeant Ok, who'd been sent to make sure reception let him through.

"Hyung!" Wonpil looked wildly around.

Spotting Younghyun sitting up in bed and Dowoon curled up dozing in the recliner next to him, Wonpil sagged all at once. He was carrying his backpack and a bright orange Sainsbury's plastic bag; he had evidently come straight from lessons.

Younghyun was absently glad that he'd been too busy to come along with them to Borough Market. The thought of him accidentally getting in the way of that knife-wielding bastard on the bridge was so viscerally terrifying that just thinking about it made Younghyun want to flinch.

"Hi, don't worry, we're all alive." He waved, and winced when it pulled at his stitches.

Wonpil's face pinched as he walked closer and sat in the chair someone had pulled over in anticipation of his visit, pulling a punnet of grapes out of the bag and setting it on the bedside table.

"Hyung," said Wonpil again softly. He glanced around the room at the attendant guards, and leaned in. "The — your ribs?"

"I'll be fine. They're just keeping me for observation. Don't worry, Wonpil-ah. It's just —"

"Don't you dare say a flesh wound."

Unable to help himself, Younghyun cracked a grin. "I mean, it is."

"Eat your grapes," snapped Wonpil, clearly fighting back a laugh. "I washed them in the JCR."

"I'm not sure if that reassures me."

This time, Sergeant Ok let out a sigh loud enough to make Dowoon stir a little. "I'll eat your bloody grapes if you don't, Kang."

"See, noona trusts me." Wonpil held the punnet of (washed) grapes out to her, who regretfully had to decline, being on duty. "Oh, who'll tell? Nobody will. It's just a grape.”

"You're a bad influence, _daegam_ ," said Sergeant Ok cheerfully, before taking a cluster. "And you, Kang, are an ungrateful brat."

"Do you want to be an ungrateful brat, hyung?" Wonpil asked, shaking the punnet at him.

Thusly outnumbered, Younghyun ate his grapes.

"They were two for one." Wonpil told Sergeant Ok, holding up the bag to her. "So Sergeant Jung can have grapes too. Is he in another room?"

"Yes," she said, looking briefly touched. "Here, I'll go give these to them. Corporal, guard the door."

Wonpil looked over questioningly at the napping Dowoon, when Sergeant Ok had gone out the door and Corporal Yang took up his post next to it.

"He's just a bit bruised, fell against the parapet." Younghyun said. "No concussion."

"Con _cussion_?" Wonpil repeated, a note of hysteria entering his voice.

"He doesn't have one!"

"I hadn't realised that was within the realm of possibility!"

"They always are," grimaced Younghyun, and realised belatedly that was perhaps not the most reassuring of things to have said when Corpora Yang snorted from his post.

Wonpil was giving him a sad sort of look, before he shook his head and popped some grapes into his mouth. "Well, if he's all right then can't Dowoonie come home?"

"Mm, well, there are more guards here for now ... and they want him in for observation too. Just in case."

"Of what! You said his head is fine!"

Dowoon muttered in his sleep and turned a little in the armchair he'd curled himself up in, looking achingly vulnerable and young. They both fell quiet and turned to look.

The look on Wonpil's face when Younghyun turned his gaze from Dowoon to him was complicated. Too complicated to read. He looked a little bit like he was going to cry, but it wasn't simple. Why he looked that way wasn't simple.

"He willl be fine, Wonpil-ah," Younghyun murmured helplessly.

Wonpil looked back at him for a long moment, that complex unreadable mixture of feelings still a storm in his eyes. He looked — unhappy, like this. Younghyun wanted to reach out and do something about it. Younghyun didn't quite know what that something ought to be.

A smile passed quickly across Wonpil's face, but it wasn't the usual sunshine smile; instead it was something small and sad. It made something in Younghyun's chest wrench. "Because you're there for him." He reached out from his chair to touch the closest part of Dowoon to him. "All of you."

Younghyun drew in a quick breath. He didn't know what to say.

"Has this happened before? Ever?" Wonpil asked, gaze dropping. "In .. in Corea? Or wherever else, I suppose."

Younghyun paused. "Not — not since —"

"Oh." Wonpil somehow managed to shrink even smaller. "Sorry, I didn't mean — of course." He smiled mirthlessly. "How could I forget."

Younghyun bit his lip. "This wasn't targeted. Well, we don't think."

"That's not the point, though, is it."

It was hard to tell what Wonpil was thinking, when his head was bowed like this, and he had gone still all over. Even his fingers were still where they rested on Dowoon's hip; his other hand was held demurely in his lap.

"It ... this could have happened to anyone," Younghyun said at last. "There were many other people on the bridge. We just ... reacted first."

Wonpil did look up then, if only to give him a piercing look, as though he knew what Younghyun had meant was — he'd seen the flash of light off metal, and started moving before the screams and the other pedestrians scattering had started; that the man with the knife _had_ weaved towards them, the closest cluster of foreign-looking people; that in the chaos of so many moving bodies and the unpredictability of the attacker Sergeant Jung had got a laceration along the ribs to match Younghyun's own when they'd lunged forth to subdue him.

Drawing his feet up onto the chair, Wonpil wrapped his arms around his shins and said something inaudible to his knees.

Ignoring the pull in his side, Younghyun leaned forward a little to tap the back of Wonpil's hand. "What's that?"

Wonpil shook his head. "I just forget that — how long have you been a guard, hyung?"

Younghyun blinked at the non-sequitur. "Um. I started training in high school, so if you count that ... five years?"

This time, he heard Wonpil's murmured "So _young_ ," before Wonpil said, louder, "That's a long time."

"It was the youngest they'd take me." Younghyun was unsure of what else he could say.

Near the door, Corporal Yang snorted again. "The actual youngest, _daegam-mama_. Lt. Kang is only a little bit notorious."

"How very dedicated." Wonpil's smile trembled a little in the corners. "I'm glad Dowoonie has you."

The pain that shot through his chest then had nothing to do with the fresh wound or him accidentally pulling his stitches.

"Do you need an escort home?" he asked helplessly.

"So eager to get rid of me, hyung?" Wonpil's voice strained with how light he was making it. "I haven't even nagged that much."

"No!! Just, I'm just asking."

Wonpil shook his head and glanced over at Dowoon, who was still napping. "I'll wait for Dowoonie to wake up and then go, I think. Not going to get much work done today, in any case."

Younghyun inexplicably felt like apologising.

"He'll be fine, _daegam-mama_ ," Corporal Yang said sympathetically. "Honestly, it's probably all that excitement that's knocked _pyeha_ out."

"Dowoon isn't a toddler."

Younghyun forebore to point out that Wonpil was totally patting Dowoon's hip like one would a baby.

Corporal Yang laughed quietly. "No, my apologies, I just meant — the adrenaline, when you come down off an adrenaline high. It takes people differently."

"Mmmm." Wonpil was still looking at Dowoon, a contemplative sort of melancholy on his face. "Poor Dowoonie." He turned back to Younghyun and smiled briefly; more the ghost of one than anything else. "Poor Younghyunie-hyung."

"And Sergeant Jung," added Younghyun a little teasingly.

But Wonpil just nodded seriously. "And him, too."

"I think perhaps we should arrange an escort home for _daegam_ - _mama_ , Lieutenant?" Corporal Yang said. "And someone ought to let Jinyoung-sshi know what has happened."

"What's this?" Sergeant Ok strode back in through the door. "That housemate of yours? I shouldn't be surprised if he already knows. It's all over the bloody news, the embassy's going mad. Lieutenant Choi's going mad. The Palace is going mad. Buyeong- _daegam_ 's had to be very forcibly reminded that it would be better for everyone if he stayed in Bognor. Wonpil- _daegam_ , your parents have also been called."

Younghyun caught Wonpil's gaze; something had closed off, far back in his eyes. Swallowing, Younghyun tried offering him a reassuring smile.

"I should call Jinyoungie." Wonpil _didn't_ smile back, looking away and pulling his phone out. "Oh. Goodness. Um."

"We took the liberty of informing him that you would be here," said Sergeant Ok. "Well, Lieutenant Choi did, after he called the embassy demanding to know if his housemate was still alive or if he needed to borrow black clothes from Lieutenant Kang. Mourning blacks, or something. What a dramatic young man."

"Oh, god, Jinyoungie," Wonpil moaned, burying his face in his hands whilst Younghyun was startled into laughter.

Laughter was a bad idea.

"Ow, fuck," he hissed, holding his side.

Dowoon finally stirred and blinked muzzily. "Hyung?"

"Dowoonie!" Wonpil emerged from his hands. "You — are awake."

"Yes. Wonpilie-hyung?"

"That's me — _oh_!" Wonpil braced himself as Dowoon hugged him, quick as lightning.

"Hyung," Younghyun could hear Dowoon mumble, "I'm glad you were too busy to come with us."

"Oh, Dowoon-ah," Wonpil murmured, and hugged back.

He looked up. Their eyes met.

"So ... so am I," Younghyun said quietly, picking at the fuzzy blanket. "If you had —" he broke off, unable or unwilling or both to articulate what he felt: that he wasn't sure what he would have done, then, torn between his training and being distracted by the gravitic distortion of Wonpil's presence.

Wonpil's eyes gleamed for a moment, before he blinked and looked away. "I understand. I know." He sucked a noisy breath in through his nose. When he spoke again, his voice had taken on that falsely bright ring. "Dowoon-ah, you have to let go. I have to go home at some point, you know."

Dowoon made a noise that might be classified as a whine, but he did struggle back upright. And pout, because his cousin was truly a terrible influence. Him and Jinyoung both.

"Don't look at me like that." Wonpil held out his bloody punnet. "Eat some grapes."

Eventually Wonpil did have to go. Visiting hours were over and the nurses insisted that Younghyun needed sleep to recover properly and that he was still a growing boy ("I'm _twenty-one_ ," he had complained to no sympathetic ears) and the he was already being allowed Dowoon as an overnight guest, which was overwhelming enough for the ward.

"Good night," Wonpil said as he wrapped his scarf back around his neck and put his coat on. "Be good. I'll see you tomorrow."

For a brief, painkiller-induced moment, Younghyun thought he might lean down and kiss him. But no — of course not. For so many reasons, no.

"I'll see you two tomorrow." Wonpil favoured them both with a smile, and then he was gone, the door snicking shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update, because these 2 chapters are comparatively shorter! 
> 
> Also idk for a little more distraction from everything all happening at once. 
> 
> I'd love to hear what you thought about this chapter in particular, though!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strops ft JJP, me trying to recall what happened in Love Actually, and Younghyun being a very confused young man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dedicating this one to gritty. especially bc I parsed this through the ao3 html script an hour ago and then got distracted by more political memes.

"The drama never ceases in that house, does it," said Agent Shim after one of the Friday briefings.

There was always a part two to Younghyun's reports regarding the Belgravia House, over whatever snack the embassy kitchens saw fit to spare the Guards. The informal report, because everyone did seem strangely invested in the lives of Wonpil and Jinyoung.

"Does an attempted stabbing count as normal drama?" Younghyun asked. Weeks after the incident at London Bridge, the long laceration along his side was healing nicely, pink with new skin. 

Only this, and a strange, almost-distant carefulness in the way Wonpil treated him were what remained of that almost-crisis. Younghyun had thought about telling Wonpil this wasn't the _worst_ injury he'd suffered (that would be the broken collarbone and bruised pride when he had been sixteen), but had thought better of it at the last second.

Agent Shim chewed thoughtfully. "No, I suppose not. Thought it depends on who you ask and where you live, in these parts."

"Croydon's off-limits for a reason," agreed Agent Na.

"Your housemates live vastly more soothingly dramatic lives, in comparison."

Younghyun could not disagree with that. Well, he wasn't sure about soothingly, especially when he and Dowoon got home from some sort of fundraiser later that night to the terrible two demolishing a truly frightening amount of sugar in the sitting room.

Jinyoung had got into what Wonpil called a _strop_ , vis-à-vis his on-again-off-again. This utterly mystified Younghyun, as things with Jaebeom had seemed swimming last Younghyun knew. But apparently all week long a storm had been brewing, and now it seemed it had broken.

On Prince Buyeong's gifted television screen, Colin Firth leapt into a really disgusting looking pond. Jinyoung, sobbing into Wonpil's shoulder, didn't seem to notice. Around the two of them lay five half-opened cartons of Gu puddings and half-empty paper bags of marked down seasonal special cookies from Sainbury's.

Mildly concerned, Younghyun paused on the threshold of the sitting room. Dowoon stopped behind him, though probably more because he wanted the cookies than anything else.

"Um," said Younghyun. "Is ... uh ..."

Bedraggled, Colin Firth and a lady in long dark hair and a flowery dress climbed out of the scummy pond.

Wonpil turned his head just enough to look at them. "It's all right," he said. "I only get really worried when Jinyoungie breaks out the arthouse films."

"Well ... if you say so." Younghyun dithered a bit. "Just text me if you need anything else. Uh. Water ... tissues..."

"A fresh hoodie," Dowoon said under his breath.

Wonpil smiled at him. "Maybe a hit on Jaebeom?"

"Wonpilie! No!" Jinyoung objected snottily.

"Maybe not that," said Younghyun. "Wouldn't want you to be an accomplice to murder."

"You could just hit him?" Wonpil asked a little hopefully.

Younghyun laughed, and then stopped abruptly, thinking it probably insensitive when Jinyoung was still leaking tears. "No promises, Wonpil-ah."

"Hyung," Dowoon put in at this point, "are you going to eat all those cookies?"

" _Yes_ ," snarled Jinyoung. "Get your own."

"Wow," murmured Dowoon behind the safety of Younghyun's back.

"Oh, just go away if you aren't going to help us wreak vengeance." Wonpil huffed, and turned away.

"I'm putting _sokkoritang_ from the embassy in the kitchen," Younghyun told his side profile, "if you want ... real ... food."

Dowoon still looked a little amused, and a little concerned when Younghyun pivoted on his heel to head for the stairs down to the basement.

"I'm going down too; I want a snack. Just looking at those cookies made me hungry."

"Mmm." Younghyun held the door to the basement open for Dowoon. "They never have real food at your events, anyway."

Sighing as though all the weight of the world were upon his young shoulders, Dowoon slumped down the stairs. "Never."

Younghyun followed. He was just about to let go of the door when he heard Jinyoung say explosively, "I don't — he's so lovely to you, why won't you just _do_ —" and froze.

Wonpil murmured something, too low to hear.

Then Jinyoung's voice, raised further: "It's so _stupid_ , Pilie! Just fuck it — "

Shaking himself, Younghyun pulled the door at the top of the stairs shut.

*

The now-familiar sounds of Wonpil practising on the piano floated up the stairs as Younghyun made his way down to the kitchen for second breakfast after his post-run shower the next morning.

The detritus of Jinyoung eating his feelings had all been cleared up when Younghyun glanced into the sitting room, earlier in the morning. Still, Younghyun had the feeling of something being unfinished. He detoured into the piano parlour.

"Um," Younghyun said hesitantly. "Is Jinyoung ... all right now? I heard ... yelling, after we left."

Wonpil glanced up at him, and then back down at his score. Dismissively, he said, "Yes, it's normal."

Younghyun hesitated, unfooted by the strange distance in Wonpil's voice. "Are ... are _you_ all right?"

He watched, worry building, as Wonpil bit his lip and stared down at his fingers, curled over the keys. "I'm — I'm fine, hyung. Just stressed out, you know. And that _guy_ —" Wonpil broke off and made a guttural sound in the back of his throat.

He was so aggravated, and so cutely so, that Younghyun couldn't help the laugh. "No, I'm not — " he gave up at the scowl Wonpil was giving him. "I have faith in Jinyoung's ability to sort Jaebeom out," he settled on. "They'll be fine."

"He shouldn't _have_ to." Wonpil banged out an angry sounding chord. "It's never just fine! It's been _three years_ , almost! And he's got the _nerve_ to try and tell _me_ what to d— when it's not like _they've_ got a stupid — oh, ugh!" He punctuated that thoroughly confusing series of half-finished exclamations with possibly the most aggravated trill to have been sounded in history.

"Stop that —" Younghyun caught his wrist, the one that had been giving him trouble"— or you'll make it worse."

Wonpil did stop — he stopped altogether, went as still as a deer in headlights. His eyes, when he turned them to Younghyun's face, were huge.

"Ah," said Younghyun awkwardly. He'd thought, after Christmas — well. He let go. "Sorry."

For some reason, Wonpil closed his eyes and let out a long, low sigh after inhaling deeply. Then he shook his head.

Younghyun wished fervently that he could — that he could just curl up in Wonpil's mind for an hour or a day. Just so he could understand.

He'd had the impression, from the very moment Wonpil had walked into the piano parlour and found Younghyun already in there revising for exams, that Wonpil had despite all appearances been tense to the point of snapping.

But now, all that tension dissolved as Wonpil smiled at him, soft and warm like the kiss of the sun in early summer. It was impossible not to smile back.

"No," said Wonpil, eyelashes dipping. "Thank you, hyung. I should take a break and stretch."

Younghyun heaved a sigh of his own. "And I should stop taking a break and get back to work."

The piano bench made its strange dull _thud-a-thud_ sound skidding across the rug under it as Wonpil stood up, arms raised to the ceiling. His hoodie lifted; Younghyun averted his eyes.

Mid-stretch, Wonpil asked, sounded a little winded, "D'you want a cup of tea? I'm going to make some."

When Younghyun looked, Wonpil had moved on to stretching his upper back and was hunched over, hands clasped and straining out in front of him. His eyebrows were drawn together with the effort of it.

"Yes please," said Younghyun, and, "Wonpil-ah, you have to remember to breathe."

He watched Wonpil's back expand, and then Wonpil was relaxing out of his stretch and exhaling a groan as he unfurled upright.

"I always forget that part," Wonpil said ruefully, rolling his neck and meeting Younghyun's eyes mid-roll.

A strange thing happened then. Wonpil's big eyes widened, something passed electric between them, and then Wonpil broke their locked gazes.

The electricity must have fried Younghyun's brain, because he stupidly said, "You'll be fine."

Wonpil paused mid-step towards the door. That tension from before again settled into the room, doubly noticeable now because of its momentary absence.

A strange smile fleeted across his face.

Then Wonpil nodded to himself and was in motion again, setting Younghyun's attempts to gather himself back together in disarray when he briefly squeezed Younghyun's hand as he brushed past.

"You'll be fine too, hyung," he said, and went out the door.

Reeling, Younghyun went back to the equally confusing but less dramatic world of econometrics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fun thing about this is that wonpil's just been having a total emotional journey off screen (oh my god younghyun really Is A Guard; omg he Does Do Guarding and Got Hurt Guarding; why are we doing this this will never go anywhere; omg but I like him so much and it's so fun to banter with him; omg ok fuck it I guess???) but younghyun's entire take on this is Bwuh? and writing the 'bwuh?' is EXCELLENT. 
> 
> ANYWAY. hope you enjoyed the double updates. hope you're maintaining your sanity in the face of everything happening at once in this year of our lord 2020, year of corona, the US elections, destiel, and shinee coming back so fucking soon. 
> 
> [liberté, egalité, gritté!](https://twitter.com/alicelfc4/status/1324731431206244352)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the noona.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to put my slytherin hat on for this chapter. I hope it turned out well.

Wonpil's noona was a little bit of a figure of myth, in their household.

"Noona is just _noona_ ," Wonpil would say dismissively, in response to any information-gathering efforts.

These were _Younghyun's_ information-gathering efforts, mind; Dowoon had met his cousin over Christmas down in Bognor, of course, and was similarly stonewalling Younghyun out of some latent sense of the perverse.

Wonpil met up with her every now and then for dinner, sometimes for lunch, sometimes with her boyfriend in tow. Younghyun had seen them through the car windows once before, picking Wonpil up post-dinner at some sort of direly hip place in Whitechapel, since Dowoon had had an engagement nearby. And of course, whenever Prince Buyeong came up to London.

"Nobody ever expects Yeeun-noona," said Dowoon, "to be the way ... she is."

"Which _is_?" Younghyun prodded; the official dossiers on Wonpil and his sister were thin and to the point, and so: unhelpful.

Jinyoung looked sympathetic. "Yeeun-noona _is_ a little bit intimidating."

So it came to be that when the occasion arose, everyone was varying degrees of nervous.

Yeeun-noona had been deputised by Auntie Hyeyi to make sure they weren't dying in their own filth. The impending visit was, as such, An Event.

But first she took them to lunch at an Italian trattoria favoured by lawyers on the Embankment, in advance of conducting what she herself called an inspection by proxy.

"Apparently it's my fraternal duty," she said ironically, settling into the round cosy booth they'd been guided to, "and I have been derelict."

Dowoon was ushered in after her so that he was between Younghyun and her, with his back solidly to a wall. Wonpil sat on the lone chair since he took up the least space, apparently. Even though Yeeun-noona was about a foot shorter than Wonpil.

Younghyun, born and raised an only child, had no idea what was happening. Soojin- _gongju_ mostly just distantly doted upon Dowoon and conveniently (to Younghyun's eye) caused minor explosions in her lab whenever His Majesty's counsellors got a little too excited about controlling Dowoon's life.

"May as well go on as you began?" Wonpil asked.

"You tell _eomma_ that, if you want."

"You could always lie."

"Do you remember being cross-examined by her when _appa_ snuck you out to that footie game when you were meant to be studying?"

"I try not to," said Wonpil grimly. "We'll just have to suffer the inspection, then."

"As if you'd be the ones suffering," said she, so sniffily that Dowoon started laughing. He laughed even harder when she eyed him and said with a soft set to her mouth, "Laughing at my pain, Dowoonie? How tyrannical."

Conversation was thus light and easy, though Younghyun had the uneasy feeling that she was watching him out of the corner of her eyes even while she was explaining her job to Dowoon over their entrees. The conversation — which had moved onto some finer points of EU land law that Dowoon somehow had heard about through some of his coursemates — carried on through to the arrival of their mains.

Younghyun just kept his head down and focused on inhaling his pasta whilst Yeeun-noona shot Wonpil exasperated looks whenever he asked what must surely be purposefully stupid questions.

When Yeeun-noona looked like she might actually pitch the last of her _cacio e pepe_ at her little brother, Younghyun essayed an attempt to distract Wonpil from annoying his noona.

"Wonpil-ah." Younghyun touched him on the shoulder. "Isn't that your friend? The one you accompanied for that viola recital?" He nodded at a pair of girls who were waiting at the pedestrian crossing outside the restaurant, just visible through the window across the restaurant.

Wonpil leaned into him to see better, there being a potted plant in his line of vision. Then his eyes widened and he breathed, "Oh my god Padma you finally did it!"

"Did what?" Younghyun asked.

It was only when Wonpil looked up at him that Younghun realised just how close they were — Wonpil was half in his lap, long fingers clutching his knee for support, pressing into Younghyun's arm. He recoiled into the cushioned seat backing as much as he could, extracting his arm and stretching it out to clutch the back of Wonpil's chair.

Wonpil, oblivious or unnoticing or perhaps just not giving a damn, had gone back to gaping out of the window.

"She got her girl!" Wonpil clapped happily and finally — finally, shifted his weight back into his chair. Younghyun felt like he could breathe again.

"Who got her girl?" Yeeun-noona cut in. Wonpil jumped. "Pirimiri, did you just _forget our existence_?"

"Oh" — Wonpil blushed and glanced quickly at Younghyun — "No? It's just, Padma! She's had a massive crush on one of the sound engineering students for ages. Aaaaaaages."

"That's nice," said Yeeun-noona, but her gaze was fixed on some point below Wonpil's face. "And —"

Whatever she was going to say next, though, was lost in the arrival of the waiter with the dessert menus.

"Oh —" Wonpil started. "I'm not done with my pasta, though. We just had so many appetisers." He looked questioningly at Younghyun, who pulled the plate over in response.

"You don't need to guard my brother's stomach too, you know," Yeeun-noona said, sounding amused. "We can just get that packed."

"It's all right, I was still a little hungry anyway," he said, and applied himself to it. "And I don't like sweet things that much."

"No?" she asked, arch again. "Good for you."

"Noona," Dowoon interrupted with all his diplomatic training, "what is s-fog-ah, this thing?"

Distracted, Yeeun-noona turned back to him and looked at what he was pointing out. "I don't know. Let's find out."

Sfogliatella turned out to be flaky clam-shaped pockets, formed from multiple layers of paper-thin pastry encasing a citrusy custard cream filling, fresh from the oven.

"Oh my _god_ ," Wonpil moaned after his first bite, eyes closing. Younghyun wrenched his eyes away from the bit of cream stuck to the corner of his parted lips. "Should've done law instead if this is what that gets you."

Yeeun-noona reached across the table and shoved Wonpil's napkin in his face. "We're in _public_ , Pilie. Foodgasms not appropriate."

"They shouldn't serve this in public, then," he retorted, but kept the noises to a minimum after that.

*

They took the car back instead of the long walk, on account of Dowoon.

"Maybe I shouldn't have had all that tiramisu..." Yeeun-noona pressed her hand to her belly.

Wonpil grinned at her. "You can walk back to work then, noona."

"It's ok as long as you enjoyed the food, noona," Dowoon said. "You don't need to lose weight."

"I like this one," Yeeun-noona said, and took Dowoon's arm in her own as she sailed down the pavement to where the car was parked.

"Twenty years." Wonpil shook his head dolefully, mischief still creasing the corners of his eyes. "Twenty years, all down the drain."

Younghyun laughed, then ducked his head when Yeeun-noona looked over her shoulder at him.

"Oh, hyung," Wonpil said in an undertone, moving closer to be heard. "You musn't let noona intimidate you."

"I'm just being ... respectful," Younghyun said unconvincingly.

Up ahead, Yeeun-noona was teasingly saying _Ooh, la_ to Dowoon as he pointed the embassy car out.

"Actually," she said when they caught up with her and Younghyun unlocked the doors, "I've seen this car before, haven't I? You picked Wonpilie up in this after dinner once. Jack was like, _oh what a flash car_."

"There is nothing _flash_ about this car!" Wonpil exclaimed, slamming the reinforced door after him as he climbed into the passenger seat.

Younghyun glanced about the car, and then started the engine. "I have no personal stake in this car. It's from the embassy."

"Do you think," Dowoon said thoughtfully, "that Jack thought so because he hadn't seen _chakeun-harabeoji_ 's car yet?"

Wonpil twisted around in his seat to face the back. " _Harabeoji_ and _halmeoni_ have a very mud-splattered Range Rover, so I'm not sure what your point is."

" _I_ thought it was a very exciting car."

"Oh, Dowoon-ah..." Yeeun-noona sounded a little pitying.

"I'm sure _harabeoji_ wouldn't mind showing you how to drive it," Wonpil added, also sounding rather sympathetic. "Though it _is_ manual."

Younghyun had vague visions of Dowoon insisting on learning how to drive a four-wheel drive, and sped up a little.

Once they got back, Younghyun beat his strategic retreat down the stairs to put the kettle on whilst Wonpil and Dowoon gave Yeeun-noona the tour.

Having excavated a tray, clean mugs, and half their tea collection, Younghyun found he could not put off the inevitable any longer and took the tea up to the sitting room.

"I'm impressed," Yeeun-noona was saying as the three cousins came in through the door. "I've definitely seen worse."

"There is," Wonpil admitted, "an ajumma from the embassy who comes round every two weeks."

"Free rent _and_ cleaning service?" She tapped Wonpil on the nose. "Quite the deal you're getting, aren't you."

Dowoon shuffled embarrassedly.

"We clean in between! Wash dishes and things." Wonpil paused and gave Younghyun a look. "Except for those coffee mugs."

Younghyun raised his hands in surrender. "I'll get to them today, I swear."

Yeeun glanced between them and shook her head. "If coffee mugs are the worst of it ..."

"Well, I didn't show you my closet," said Wonpil.

"If I didn't see it" — she dimpled at her younger brother — "then it doesn't exist."

"That works for me."

The two of them shook hands.

"Um," Younghyun interjected, "so, tea?"

Dowoon took one of the armchairs; Yeeun-noona the other, leaving the sofa that Younghyun had dragged over to the fireplace for Wonpil and him.

They were just communing with their stamping mugs when there came a thunderous series of steps down the stairs.

"There you are!" Yeeun-noona said as Jinyoung bounded past the living room door, arresting him mid-step. "We skipped over your room; Wonpilie said you were drowning in literature."

"Oh, hello noona!" Jinyoung said chirpily. "I've undrowned myself for the mo'. Just popping out for some biscuits and coffee. We've run out." This he addressed to Younghyun, the two of them being the chief consumers of caffeine in this household.

"Jinyoungie," she said, eyeing his pyjama bottoms tucked into his socks. "I see final year is treating you ... well."

"Oh, you should see Wonpilie when he's mid-compositional flow. At least we're suffering together."

"Your very noble gap year so you'd finish uni together, yes." Yeeun-noona sounded archly amused. "What about Wonpilie should I see?"

"Looks like a mountain man. A malnourished mountain man," Jinyoung clarified.

"I'm not malnourished," Wonpil protested.

"Whoever heard of a mountain twink, Pilie." Jinyoung rolled his eyes whilst Wonpil started protesting loudly, Younghyun choked on his tea, and Yeeun-noona started cackling. "Well, see you later!"

With that, he left them all in his chaotic wake.

"He's had three coffees today at least," Wonpil said bleakly. "Don't become like him next year, Younghyunie-hyung."

"So, how _do_ you feel about being halfway through your degree?" Yeeun-noona asked warmly. It was so easy to forget that she was a barrister, unless you noticed the sharp, assessing look in her eyes.

Dowoon blew out a big breath and fell back into his armchair. "It's going by so fast, noona."

"Mm," she said. "It was that way for me too. And now my baby brother is going to be graduating soon."

Wonpil, who'd been looking fondly at Dowoon, groaned and drew his feet up onto the sofa so he could knock his forehead against his knees. "Don't remind me. I'm going to be old soon."

"Old!" Yeeun reached out with a foot before realising that the furniture was spaced too far apart for her to kick Wonpil in the leg. "What do you mean, old! Ridiculous."

"You're not old either, noona," Dowoon said.

"Ah, Dowoonie, you're my favourite." Yeeun-noona gave Wonpil a squinty-eyed look. "I'm exchanging you two."

"I think Corea might object to that," Wonpil said drily. "They're quite used to Dowoonie, I think."

Mischief lining his face, Dowoon said, "I wouldn't mind."

"Well, that's settled, then. Corea, meet Wonpil- _pyeha_ , or however it's styled." Yeeun-noona laughed in the same crinkly, hiccupping way Wonpil did. "Really though — I know it's hard for you, but have you managed to see much of London at all?"

Younghyun looked sidelong at her, wondering when she was going to get to her point.

"I've seen some," said Dowoon. "Lots of museums and galleries. The parks. An opera. I fell asleep. I think there was a ballet, but I fell asleep during that one too. Um — what else, hyung?"

"Camden," said Younghyun wryly. "Heaven."

Yeeun laughed. "Oh, I heard about that one. _Harabeoji_ gave Pilie an earful about _the Dignity of Corean Royalty_ at tea."

"It's not like _harabeoji_ has that much dignity himself," Wonpil grumbled into his knees.

Younghyun reached across the sofa to rub his back sympathetically, biting back a smile.

"Soho," Dowoon continued. "Ronnie Scott's a few times." He smiled a bit. "I went with friends from Jazz Soc."

"That's nice," said Yeeun-noona.

Younghyun had not failed to notice the way her eyes had flicked to his hand on Wonpil's back. He took his hand back.

"I expect you'll miss your friends a lot when you graduate, yeah? I know I do, especially the international ones, and I actually _can_ go visit with them." She sighed. "Technically, anyway. It's so hard to find time for a long trip overseas, with my caseload."

Oh.

And it looked like Dowoon had also realised what the point Yeeun-noona had been leading them towards was, because his face stilled.

"W — they still have another year and a half, noona," said Wonpil quietly. He'd emerged from his knees, and was now looking across at his sister, chin propped up on them. "You don't have to make it sound so _soon_."

"I'll do my best to make the most of it," Dowoon said. "This is ... I'm making precious memories here."

"If I can do anything to help," she said sympathetically, and meant it too, so Younghyun couldn't even dislike her the way he wanted to. She was just very different from her straightforward younger brother. "Then let me know. The Inns have some very beautiful gardens. And there's stuff outside of London too, of course." She gave Younghyun a knowing look. "Unless it'd be too much trouble for you lot."

Younghyun shook his head, smiling wryly. "That's what we're here for."

"I'll bet," said Yeeun-noona.

"Hyung doesn't ever really stop us going places," Wonpil put in. He turned to give Younghyun a rueful smile and scooted over to nudge him in the arm. "Though he probably wishes he could. I'm actually amazed that his boss doesn't."

Captain Choi mostly just looked like he was going to imminently develop a headache, possibly resign his commission, and after pinching the bridge of his nose, would commence efficiently planning. Younghyun was learning a _lot_ just from working with him.

"You go wherever Dowoonie goes, right?" Yeeun-noona asked rhetorically. Younghyun wished she would stop. "So it makes sense, Pilie, because then Younghyun would get to see things too. And you deserve to as well, you know," she said to him.

Unable to say what he really wanted to, Younghyun just nudged Wonpil back and tried on the blandly charming smile that Captain Choi seemed to have mastered at some point in his time with the Marines. "I intend to make the most of my remaining time here as well too, _gongju-mama_." Ignoring the way she winced at the title, he went on, "But please, don't give Wonpilie or Jinyoungie any more ideas."

Having apparently decided that her point had been made well enough, Yeeun-noona stretched and laughed. "No? Well, I suppose it would be cruel to."

"I don't have any time for ideas, anyway," said Wonpil fretfully. This was true. Wonpil had, for what seemed the past five months straight, been dementedly practising, working on coursework, and worrying about his future.

"Poor hyung," Dowoon murmured.

"Oh yes. How're your applications going?"

Wonpil sighed and buried his face in his mug. "They're going."

"Chin up," tutted Yeeun-noona. "Can't be worse than applying for a pupillage."

"Not _helpful_ , noona."

She sighed. "Look, you'll get into a programme, all right? Even if you have to move somewhere else —"

"Nothing wrong with moving somewhere else —"

"And probably die because you can't take care of yourself," Yeeun-noona ploughed inexorably on. "Without a magical ajumma from the embassy or —" she waved a careless hand in Younghyun's general direction.

"I managed just fine for a year and a half on my own!"

"He's mummy's boy," said Yeeun-noona in faux-conspiratorial tones to Dowoon and Younghyun.

Wonpil puffed his cheeks out in a way that made Younghyun want to die a little inside. "I am _not_."

"I think it's nice," said Dowoon blandly.

This, at least, gave Yeeun-noona pause, as she recalled her cousin's precise circumstances.

"Well," she said. "You can share the burden of eomma's endless banchan."

"Happily." Dowoon raised his mug to Younghyun. "It mostly goes to fuelling hyung, anyway."

"Fuelling him, hmm?" Much to Younghyun's discomfort, Yeeun-noona's piercing gaze landed on him again.

"He's a bottomless pit," said Wonpil lightly. "Anyway, noo- _na_ , are you coming to my graduation recital?"

Yeeun-noona raised her eyebrows at Younghyun, before letting herself be distracted.

The conversation moved smoothly away to promises and whether or not Jack would be able to attend Wonpil's recital or not.

Relieved, Younghyun was left to relax back into the sofa as much as he could and think idle, vaguely terrified thoughts about what would happen if Yeeun-noona somehow ended up inheriting the Corean throne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bysine (xf the final lines): WHAT an AU though  
> me: dowoon abdicates to drum, his noona is like um i'm curing cancer wtf, buyeong abdicates bc age, the patagonians are like JAJAJAJA NO, wonpil's dad is just like my wife is antimonarchy pls there is only so much cognitive dissonance i can put her through, so .... yeeun-noona....barrister ... ascends the throne with the sole aim of dismantling the monarchy
> 
> also I'm going to try to post twice a week in an attempt to pressure myself to write more consistently/faster.
> 
> (eta: please [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1327457428032655360?s=20) and comment if you enjoyed!)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Easter. Wonpil's very stressed out, there are pancakes (British), kdrama shimkoong moments, and much uncertainty.

They were stuck on the M4 returning from Wiltshire, when Dowoon suggested some sort of sightseeing tour during the Easter holidays. This came after he'd ventured the possibility of stopping by Reading to visit Wonpil's parents (nixed by all security agents in the car) and had subsided into something rather resembling a sulk.

"Just in the country," he said hopefully. "I don't have that many engagements, do I?"

He did not.

"Maybe Wonpilie-hyung can come along," added Dowoon. "For day trips."

Younghyun didn't think it was likely; Wonpil gave the impression these days of being very brittle despite the false brightness he slapped on. Or maybe it was holding him together, while he split his energies between completing his coursework, interviewing for PGCE positions and practising for what seemed like three different things at a go.

Younghyun had just the previous week made the mistake of idly remarking on how he thought teaching was supposed to _reduce_ the amount of playing Wonpil was meant to do. He had been glared out of the piano room and subsequently ignored for the next twenty-four hours.

As expected, things did not go quite as Dowoon had hoped when he broached the topic.

"No, I can _not_ go ANYWHERE," Wonpil's voice floated stridently across from the piano room, where Dowoon had gone to look for him. "GO YOURSELF."

Younghyun put his laptop aside and hurried over from the sitting room.

Inside the piano room, Dowoon looked visibly taken aback. Understandable; Younghyun didn't think Wonpil, usually so sweet-tempered, had ever snapped at him like this before. More to the point, no-one in recent memory, other than possibly Princess Soojin, had ever snapped at him before.

"Sorry, hyung," murmured Dowoon into the silent, taut wake of Wonpil's outburst. "I'm sorry."

"Oh!" Wonpil huffed, glancing away at his laptop, perched atop the piano, and back at Dowoon. His gaze caught on Younghyun, over Dowoon's shoulder. The furrow between his brows relaxed minutely, though his mouth was still pinched. "Just... just ... I'll let you know later, all right?"

Dowoon nodded and started backing away to the door. "Okay. Sorry again, hyung."

*

"Let's do something for hyung," Dowoon said, eyebrows drawn low, when they were working in the piano room. Wonpil had still not come home. "He was — in a bad mood, the other day when I asked him along to Bath."

"I heard," said Younghyun drily.

It took a while for Younghyun to think of something that wouldn't take up too much of Wonpil's time, but hopefully put him in a good mood for a day, at least. Both he and Jinyoung spent more time out of the house than not, these days — Jinyoung furiously researching and writing in the library and Wonpil seemingly in three places at once.

There were a few early mornings, when he came home just after dawn, and they ran into each other at the front door: Wonpil dragging himself into the vestibule after an all-nighter somewhere else; Younghyun dashing into the relative warmth as his sweat cooled much too fast on these still wintry mornings.

"Where's your running jacket," Wonpil grumbled as he struggled with his laces, exhaustion making his fingers clumsy. "You'll catch cold."

"I lost it somewhere. Anyway, I'm going to take a hot shower." Younghyun knelt to help him, knocking his hands away. " _You_ are going to fall sick if you keep pushing yourself like this."

"You don't have to —" Wonpil fell silent as Younghyun unpicked the knots that had swollen with damp. He was quiet long enough that Younghyun thought he might've fallen asleep on the settee. But he had just been too tired to continue talking, perhaps, as he gazed down at Younghyun through slitted eyes, head leant back against the wall.

"All done," Younghyun said at last, patting his calf above his boot-tops and standing up.

Wonpil drew in an audible breath, like even that was costing him energy, and blew it out low and slow. He bent over to tug his boots off. "Thank you, hyung."

And then he almost fell over when he stood up, and Younghyun made the executive decision to carry him up the stairs.

"Hyung!" he protested quietly — the rest of the house was still asleep — as Younghyun turned to forcibly piggyback him. "What —"

"If you break your neck before graduating, it'll be a terrible waste."

"I'm not going to — and you're all sweaty — _oh, for fuck's sake_." Wonpil subsided in defeat as Younghyun set off down the corridor towards the stairs, his breaths tickling the back of Younghyun's neck whilst Younghyun firmly concentrated on his footing and absolutely nothing else at all. "You're so ridiculous, Kang Younghyun."

"Mmmm."

"Drop me off in the bathroom, then."

Younghyun snorted. "Got used to this quickly, didn't you?"

There was a pause while Younghyun trudged up the stairs and hiked Wonpil a little higher up his back.

"I could," Wonpil murmured, so small and quiet Younghyun wasn't sure if he was meant to have heard it at all.

He deposited Wonpil in the bathroom and went off for his own shower to think some more about Dowoon's request.

*

He arrived at pancakes on the first Sunday morning of the Easter holidays, after much agonising and the trepidation-filled consultation with Jinyoung and his raised eyebrows.

He was in the middle of trying to determine if the batter was too thick when Wonpil's footsteps came down the stairs and to a surprised stop.

"Younghyun?" Wonpil sounded barely awake. He looked it too when Younghyun turned around; eyes half-open and still in his pyjamas. Definitely not up to remembering honorifics. "You're up?"

Right — Younghyun did tend to sleep in past noon on his days off-duty.

"For good reason," he said. "Thought I'd make breakfast for ... uh, everyone."

Belatedly, Wonpil's gaze narrowed in on the bowl in the crook of his arm. "Breakfast?" He shook his head and went over to pour himself coffee from the pot Younghyun had put on. "But ... nobody else wakes up early on Sunday?"

Younghyun shrugged and demonstratively whisked the mixture a few more times while Wonpil poured in a liberal amount of milk before communing with his coffee.

Faculties seemingly starting to load, Wonpil hummed and sidled closer to peer into the bowl. "Pancakes? Have we even got lemons?"

"I bought some."

Wonpil looked up at him, eyes barely visible through his wildly curling fringe, untamed and untrimmed, the beginnings of a smile on his lips. "Did you now?"

"Ye-e-es?" Feeling utterly transparent, Younghyun lifted his whisk out of the bowl and tried on his most endearingly sheepish smile. "I'm nowhere near the level of that _ajusshi_ at Camden market, but ... well ... anyway, I looked up a recipe and some videos, so it should be okay."

The fledgling smile spread slow and warm like syrup across Wonpil's face.

"Thank you," he said, "hyung."

Before they wasted any more time smiling at each other like idiots, Younghyun looked back down at the batter in the bowl and gave it a few more whisks, then decided it was _probably_ as runny as it was meant to be.

"That looks like _appa's_ ," said Wonpil encouragingly. "Put the pan on, hyung."

Younghyun put the pan on.

The first pancake tore not whilst flipping but halfway through him trying to get it off the spatula and onto a plate.

He swore, but Wonpil just laughed.

"Looks don't matter, hyung," he said whilst squeezing lemon juice and scattering sugar onto the pale, thin pancake.

Wonpil burnt _both_ his fingers and tongue, rolling the pancake up whilst yelping about it being hot and ignoring Younghyun's admonitions to put the damn thing down, and then shoving a bite in his mouth whilst Younghyun tried to tell him the next pancake was almost done and looking much better.

"Ow, ah!" Wonpil's mouth hung open as he panted like a dog. "Ah! Hot!"

"Wonpil-ah..." Younghyun carefully flipped the pancake onto the plate. It landed half folded over, but entirely whole. He'd count it as a win.

"'On 'ay ah 'old oo oh."

"Sorry, I don't speak whatever language that is."

Wonpil hit him on the arm. "I _said_ , don't say I told you so."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Younghyun said as insincerely as he could, and laughed when Wonpil hit him again. "Yah! Is this the kind of thanks I deserve?"

"Absolutely." But Wonpil was handing him the plate and hipchecking him aside. "Here, I'll give it a go."

Younghyun couldn't know what this meant and didn't want to think about — about what lay in the future.

It was astonishingly easy, so easy to just stay in the now: on this sleepy Sunday morning in the kitchen with the radio buzzing in the background, eating an astonishingly decent pancake all sweetly tart and a little crunchy from the sugar and watching Wonpil making alarmed noises as he tried swirling pancake batter evenly to coat the bottom of the skillet.

"No, Wonpilie, like this." Younghyun gave into the pull and got up.

He stepped in behind Wonpil, mind blank, to guide him; hand over Wonpil's hand, Wonpil's elbow pressed into the crook of his own elbow, his chest a bare inch from Wonpil's back.

He felt more than saw the shiver go through Wonpil, the little judder of his shoulders, but all Wonpil said was, "Like this?"

"Yeah." Younghyun swallowed hard. "That's better."

He stepped away, heart beating a little too fast.

"No, wait." Wonpil's ears tinted pink. "I need to flip this."

"Flip — I'm not an expert either, Pilie." Younghyun pivoted to lean against the counter and watch. "And it's not ready to flip yet."

"Yes, but, but" — the flush was spreading from Wonpil's ears to his cheeks, and he was still staring determinedly at the setting batter — "well, just stay nearby, just in case."

"In case you set something on fire again?" Younghyun couldn't help but tease.

That got Wonpil's head to jerk up in indignation. "No!"

His big, dark eyes were wide and his mouth a tight sulky pout; Younghyun had to look away, duck his head under the pretence of checking on the pancake — which was turning a promising pale gold.

"Look, the centre isn't runny anymore and it's all set. Just ... shake the pancake so it's at the end of the pan."

Wonpil's head turned in the direction of the stove as well. "Oh. Just ... like this?" He shook pan from side to side.

Laughing, Younghyun shook his head and demonstrated the back-and-forth motion required. "Like this, until — yeah, you've got it. Now sort of just ... push the pan forwards while jerking it up and — "

" _Hyung_ ," Wonpil half-wailed, closing his eyes whilst holding the pan in the air. He'd switched into Corean in some bid for more sympathy. "I _can't_."

"You can, you can. Look, just —"

"My wrist hurts," Wonpil cut in, pouting so sadly at Younghyun he couldn't tell if Wonpil was exaggerating or not. "You do it."

"I'll _show_ you how to do it." Younghyun shuffled closer to take up the same position as before — Wonpil's ears tinted red again. He folded his fingers around Wonpil's on the handle. "Together, okay? You'll never learn otherwise."

Before Wonpil could protest or whine or do anything that would make Younghyun just give in and take over altogether, he flicked their wrists, careful to take most of the weight.

The pancake landed in the pan, only a little folded over on itself.

"Holy fuck!" Wonpil gasped. "What?"

"See?" Younghyun smiled at the way Wonpil was starting to beam. "You can do it after all."

Wonpil mostly ignored him in favour of carefully shaking the pancake back flat, poking at it, and then carefully transferring it onto a plate.

"I can do the next one too," he said with an adorable furrow of determination between his brows. "By myself."

"Hwaiting!" said Younghyun in Corean, since he still hadn't learnt the equivalent of the sentiment in English, before stepping carefully away.

And not a moment too soon, too, because from behind them Dowoon audibly entered the kitchen, the silken swish of his dressing gown combined with his shuffling be-slippered step unmistakeable.

"Hyung?" Dowoon yawned. "And ... _Younghyun-hyung_?"

"I know," said Wonpil, who was carefully swirling the batter to coat the bottom of the skillet. "It's an Easter miracle. He's up."

Younghyun rolled his eyes and went to retrieve the half-eaten container of luncheon meat in the fridge. "Hahaha, very funny."

Wonpil tipped him a private smirk, before transferring his attention to Dowoon.

"Dowoonie," he said, "come here and watch me flip this pancake."

Sleepy squint still firmly in place, Dowoon shuffled over obediently.

"Oh," he mumbled, as Wonpil audibly took a deep breath and attempted the flip. "You almost got it in one, hyung."

"Whatever." Wonpil was prodding the pancake all the way back into the skillet proper when Younghyun brought the luncheon meat and a carton of eggs over to the stove and put another frying pan on the fire. "What's all that for?"

"You might be okay with just lemon juice and sugar" — Younghyun bumped him gently to the side — "but I need more than that."

"Oh, cheese too, hyung," said Dowoon. "Cheese."

Wonpil stepped on Dowoon's foot. " _You_ go and get it, then."

Dowoon grumbled but went off to the other side of the kitchen.

Snorting under his breath and cracking eggs into the heated pan, Younghyun shook his head when Wonpil looked at him. "Nobody orders him around like you do."

"Well —" Wonpil stopped to slide the done pancake onto the other one they'd cooked together. "Well, _you_ do it too, then."

Slicing the luncheon meat thin so it'd fry up crisp, Younghyun smiled wryly. "You know I can't, Wonpil-ah."

Wonpil stilled, silent for a suddenly nerve-wracking moment. Then he sighed, before pouring more batter into the skillet and swirling it absently. He really was a fast learner.

"I know." Wonpil mumured, a rueful smile on his face. "Oh, I know."

Younghyun flipped his eggs over quietly and slid in the luncheon meat, uncertain of what he could say.

"That's partly why I do it, I suppose." Wonpil looked up at him, an arresting quicksilver glance, before he was turning to yell at Dowoon over his shoulder.

The kitchen was thusly enlivened by Dowoon's appearance; the dangerous warmth of Wonpil's attention and affection diverted. Younghyun didn't mind, since Wonpil loved spending time with Dowoon so much. He couldn't begrudge him that, especially when Younghyun wasn't sure what he might've done next, after reenacting scenes out of his mother's guilty pleasure dramas. At least Wonpil wasn't so much shorter than him that Younghyun had been tempted to prop his chin atop his head.

He was already treading dangerous waters when he really should know better. It didn't help that Wonpil wasn't _stopping_ him. Even though he had to know that this — whatever this was that was between them, sweet and thrilling and nascent — had a snowflake's chance in hell of going anywhere past Dowoon's graduation.

And yet, and yet.

And yet Wonpil was there in vestibule when Younghyun got back from his run in the evening, with his coat half-off and a bag of snacks from the offie hanging from his wrist, the look of surprise quickly transmuting into that soft pleased thing that made it _so hard_ for Younghyun to just nip this in the bud the way he should have a year ago.

"Hyung!" Wonpil finished shrugging his coat off all the way. "Running off this morning's pancakes?"

"We have fitness evaluations coming up soon." Younghyun hung up his running jacket and bent over to unlace his shoes, His hood flopped over his head and Wonpil stifled a giggle too late. "I think Captain Choi scheduled it for when I don't have lectures or tutorials to get to. So there's that, at least."

"Poor Younghyun-hyung," said Wonpil, sympathy and sarcasm unlikely bedfellows in his voice.

Straightening up, Younghyun shrugged and started unzipping his hoodie; he was _steaming_ in it now that he was indoors and Dowoon had clearly cranked the heating up to high everywhere in the house. "Happy Easter hols, I guess."

"I _did_ have a very happy start to the hols." Wonpil was smiling at him; Younghyun did not miss the down-up flick of his eyes. "Have I said thank you yet?"

"You did most of the work, in the end." Younghyun smiled back — it had become a reflex, by this point.

Wonpil rolled his eyes and gave him a light push. "You know what I mean. Thank you, for breakfast and ... "

"And?" Younghyun toed his house slippers on.

Wonpil opened his mouth, looked uncertain, and pressed his lips together before saying, "And thank you."

Ah, this push-and-pull, and Younghyun couldn't even fault him for it. Keeping his smile on, Younghyun said, "No worries. I'm glad you liked it." He paused awkwardly before starting off towards the stairs. "I'm just going to go shower now."

Wonpil nodded and kept apace with him until they hit the landing to Wonpil's floor. Out of the corner of his eye, Younghyun caught Wonpil raising his hand, as though to catch his sleeve. He slowed midstep; there was a flash of a forlorn look; Wonpil had snatched his hand back and was already smiling when Younghyun turned fully.

"Have a good evening, hyung," he said.

"Ah," said Younghyun, "yeah. You too, Wonpil-ah."

Hot water beating down on his back a short while later, Younghyun exhaled hard. Wonpil was probably afraid — of course he was. He might not _stop_ Younghyun's moments of weakness, but. But maybe Younghyun was doing too much. Maybe he should've woken Dowoon up to make surprise breakfast together instead. But being around Wonpil — being around Wonpil disconnected Younghyun's good sense from his impulse control.

On the stairs, just now: With his sleeve caught, what would Younghyun have done next? Something irretrievable, maybe.

It was impossible to put a name to what lay between them, or or even to talk about it; that would make it realer than any of them could afford: Wonpil, Younghyun, everyone around them. What a strange half-life, this limbo, this tidal affection, this sweet, electric connection that pulsed between them. It had to be enough to go on. It had to.

"Take it a day at a time, Kang Younghyun." His voice, echoing off the bathroom tiles and warping in the humidity, sounded ragged even to his own ears. "You can do it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was just me indulging in more kdrama shimkoong tropeyness, to make up for ... What Is To Come. we're segueing folks, we're segueing. The Edict looms large, no thanks to TKEM (the actual drama).
> 
> anyway hope you enjoyed that impromptu pancake/crepe making tutorial. please leave a comment, hit the kudos button (unless you have already), and [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1328147602022526977)!
> 
> (alsowik, SHINEE'S BACK my brain is just like. fragmenting.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimpse into Wonpil's world as he prepares for his graduation recital. The Kim-Yoons are back in force for their beloved son/grandson/brother's recital. And well-meaning adults attempt an intervention ... all as Year 2 comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is OVER SEVEN THOUSAND WORDS LONG because idek, year 2 didn't want to let me go. *collapses*

One day at a time meant, amongst other things, allowing himself to be taken along to the RCM.

"Dowoon's up to his neck in security at the embassy. You're bored of the house," Wonpil had said, standing over Younghyun with his arms akimbo, "and I want company while I practise. So do come along."

Younghyun had blinked up at him, dazed from the abrupt invitation-slash-demand and also a solid hour of studying.

"But maybe put on more clothes first," Wonpil had added. Younghyun had stripped down to his undershirt, having started revising right after working out. "It is still actually cold outside."

"Yes, _daegam-mama_ ," Younghyun had said in his most ponderously sageuk-esque tones, and then rolled out of the way when Wonpil had tried swatting him.

It turned out that Wonpil had booked a studio so that he could practise on a grand piano — answering the question Younghyun never got the opportunity to ask whilst he was being rushed into his clothes and out the door.

The studio — which was mostly taken up by the piano — smelt faintly of varnish and dust, and the closely fit wooden floorboards were almost soft and worn with age. There were distinct scratches in the floor that would not have looked out of place in a horror film, but Wonpil assured him that they were probably leftover from, amongst other things, cello spikes of yore.

"It's always so _cold_ in here," said Wonpil apologetically, as he bent over a little black box that was sitting innocuously on the floor behind the grand piano. "It's to keep these big babies in tune, but god it's freezing. Please just turn the radiator on, I don't care."

Younghyun, who had just been thinking to himself that he should've worn gloves, said, "Oh, thank fuck," and sat down in the corner closest to the radiator.

Tucked against the wall was a random old cabinet that, upon examination, contained some scores, paraphernalia for the whiteboard hung incongruously on one wall in this antique room, a few pencils, and an extremely expired pack of Revels. Like this, Younghyun could lean his back against the cabinet's side _and_ press his feet against the slowly heating radiator.

He was savouring the heat radiating up through his socks to his feet, drifting pleasantly to the sound of Wonpil's warm-up exercises and completely ignoring the notes in his backpack, when Wonpil's voice broke into his reverie.

"It must be draughty." Wonpil was turned around, frowning at him. "Next to the window. There is that table in the corner, you know."

There was, sort of; it seemed more like a convenient prop for teachers to put their coffees or notes on than anything else. Wonpil himself had unceremoniously dumped his bag on it. Also, it was next to the door and far away from Younghyun's new best friend, the radiator.

He shook his head up at Wonpil, smiling. "I've got more space to spread out, like this. It's fine."

"If you say so," Wonpil said doubtfully, before turning back to his practice.

Taking his cue, Younghyun sighed and got his laptop and notes out.

A gusty sigh got his attention a while later. Younghyun had no idea why; he had been bobbing his head absently to the rhythm, by now accustomed to the pauses and liberties that Wonpil took with the piece's rhythm.

"It sounds good?" he tried.

Wonpil stretched his arms out over his head and groaned. "It's these stupid _intervals_. My poor fingers."

Laughing under his breath, Younghyun shook his head. "Aren't your fingers long enough?"

Wonpil let his arms fall by his side and turned to squint piercingly at Younghyun. "It's not just about how long your fingers are, hyung, it's when there's _an entire passage_ that's just _full of them_ and it's so easy to just _misstep_ —"

"Miss-tap?" Younghyun interrupted, grinning.

"Oh my god!" Wonpil exploded, before bursting into giggles himself. "Don't — don't misunderstand — it's not your stupid _pun_ , it's just that you look so _proud_ of it, hyung."

Younghyun was prouder of having made him laugh, but he wasn't about to tell Wonpil so.

"Fighting!" he told Wonpil, who deflated immediately.

"That's the _problem_ ," muttered Wonpil, "I'm _fighting_ the piece today." But he shook his fingers out and turned determinedly back to the piano.

It was with this motion that Younghyun noticed faces in the narrow window set into the studio door. Wonpil was none the wiser, having quickly sunk back into the practice zone. Out of the corner of his eye, Younghyun watched the faces change over and bob in and out of the window for an amusing few minutes, before quietly setting his laptop aside.

In the moment that the voyeurs outside turned their attention briefly away, Younghyun leaned over so that he was hidden behind the piano and rolled swiftly to his feet. He crept quickly along the far wall along the same side of the door, gestured at Wonpil to go back to playing when he was shot a questioning look, and fetched up in the blindspot next to the door. It would take a very persistent and tall spy angling themself awkwardly to spot him.

"Who _is_ that," someone hissed outside the door. Apparently the studio wasn't as soundproof as it purported to be.

"Boyfriend, I s'pose," a lighter voice said.

The first voice disagreed: "No, Wonpil hasn't got one."

"Mystery for the ages." That was a new one, with a thick Northern accent. More distressingly, it continued: "Not for lack of anyone trying."

The lighter voice sing-songed: "Not anymo —"

"Oh shit," interrupted the Northerner, "where'd he go?"

A trio of kids scattered comically in the narrow corridor as Younghyun arranged his face into neutrality, pushed the door open and raised his eyebrows at them. Half-turned to look at Wonpil, who'd stopped playing.

"Wonpil-ah, I'm going to get coffee." He was careful to speak in Corean. "I need the keys. And your student card."

Wonpil blinked at him, and then looked over his shoulder. Upon spotting, presumably, his coursemates in the corridor, Wonpil looked up at the ceiling. His entire torso moved up and down in a long, silent sigh.

"In my bag," Wonpil replied, also in Corean. "The back pocket."

After leaning in through the door to retrieve Wonpil's keys and ID card, Younghyun gave him a jaunty wave and locked the door behind himself, hyper-aware of the curious gazes on his back. He turned around and gave them all the blank enquiring Royal Guard face.

To their credit, they only flinched a little bit, and followed him down the corridor as he started striding towards the stairs.

"So," said the owner of the lighter voice, who turned out to be a tall girl with tight black curls and equally dark eyeliner to match, "who _are_ you?"

"You're not at the RCM are you?" said the Northerner, who looked like he could be Zayn Malik's cousin. The only reason Younghyun knew this was because Jinyoung and Wonpil had apparently had a One Direction phase and had gone down a nostalgic Youtube rabbithole one drunken evening.

"Come on, of course he isn't, we know basically everyone," said the first voice belonging to the third person — a short girl with a severe bob. She was carrying on her back an instrument that was almost as tall as she was. "How big is the RCM, do you think?"

"We're housemates," Younghyun said at last, as he pushed open the door into the stairwell Wonpil had taken him up. "I'm just tagging along for a change in environment. Are outsiders not allowed on your campus?"

"Oh, no, no," said Possibly Zayn Malik's Cousin, "especially if they look like you."

Younghyun stopped and stared at him. People were so _forward_ , here. It was unexpected.

"Iz!" exclaimed the tall, light-voiced girl. "OH my god, so sorry."

Deciding that this person was also probably distantly related to Jinyoung, Younghyun shrugged and continued descending the stairs. "It's fine. As long as Wonpil isn't accidentally breaking any laws."

Iz made a noise. "Oh man, say his name again?"

"Wonpil," replied the short girl instead with _perfect enunciation_. Younghyun had a very contained and fast panic attack about whether or not she'd recognised him, and walked faster. "I keep telling you, it's not a hard _el_ like in English."

"We can't all be polyglots like you and Jules, Yehna. I'm very sadly monolingual," Iz said in a theatrical aside to Younghyun, who hadn't asked. "Mum and dad are very pragmatic, you see, and thought it might hamper our English."

"You're learning now, though!" said Jules encouragingly.

Feeling as though they expected something from him, and also like he'd accidentally acquired a flock of ducklings, Younghyun said, "Well, I'm sure they'll be proud of you for trying to learn your ... your home language?"

He got the distinct impression that Yehna was laughing at him behind the cover of her taller friend.

"Mate," said Iz heavily, "have any Asian parents ever been known to tell you that they're proud of you?"

Younghyun thought about his own parents, who often did — though their pride was always overcast by worry and his father's lingering guilt — and smiled wryly. "Well, maybe they'll surprise you."

"Hmmm." Jules gave him a beady-eyed look. "I can see why Wonpil keeps you around."

"We share a house?" Younghyun deflected, and pushed his way through the doors at the bottom of the stairs. He was trying to think of ways to escape them when duckling trio spotted a lecturer they'd apparently rather not meet, and ducked promptly back into the stairwell with a flurry of " _Nice to meet you_!"s and _"Don't be a stranger!_ " and " _Oh my god, Iz, chill out!_ ".

Relieved, Younghyun went on alone.

Five minutes later, he realised anew what a small school the RCM was especially in comparison to UCL, when he ran into another one of Wonpil's coursemates at the cafe. This time, it was someone he actually knew.

"Oh," said Padma the violist, who was just ahead of him in the queue and had turned around with her phone in hand only to spot him and make a doubtful face, "it's you."

She clearly hadn't forgotten Younghyun's reflexive twitch the year before when she'd tried to hug Dowoon after a joint recital by her and Wonpil.

"Yes," he said tiredly, "I'm just tagging along. Studying somewhere different."

"Mmm." Padma slid her phone back into her pocket. "I'm just surprised to see you ... alone."

Younghyun sighed and raised his eyes to scan the menu board. "I'm not always at work, surprise."

"Could've fooled me," she said. "You _were_ working on, what, a Friday night?"

"It's a Tuesday afternoon," he replied, acutely aware that this made negative sense. "And I do get time off."

Padma evidently was aware he wasn't making much sense as well, and made it clear with a smirk. "Well, I'm glad you have some kind of ... labour ... rights."

"It's not a _slave_ contract."

She rolled her eyes. "Didn't think it was one. Wonpil just gives the impression that you're extremely, hmmm, dedicated?"

Younghyun hadn't been aware that Wonpil discussed him at all with people who weren't Jinyoung. In what he would, if ever pressed, strenuously deny was an act of bribery, he told the cashier he'd pay for her when they got to the front of the queue. "And also ... do you have hazelnut flavouring? For the Americano."

The barista gave him a dead-eyed look. "We have vanilla and caramel and that's it, mate. There's a Starbucks down the road if you want fancy coffee."

"Okay," said Younghyun, after trying to remember what else he'd seen Wonpil order. "Vanilla then, thanks."

"You don't look like the flavoured coffee sort." Padma eyed him, for some reason sticking around even after she'd received her refilled thermos.

"I'm not."

Unexpectedly, she smiled a little. "I thought so. I take it you'll be there for the public recital, then?"

Dowoon would, so of course Younghyun would. In fact, given that Wonpil's entire family including his paternal grandparents would be in attendance, a full security complement would be in that box.

"Probably," he replied.

She snorted and rolled her eyes, hitching her case higher on a shoulder with the hand not clutching her thermos before turning to go. "Yeah, all right. So I'll see you there. Thanks for the coffee."

"Brian!" shouted the barista, even though Younghyun was standing _right there_. "Oh, there you are. Here're your drinks, mate. Covers over there, uncovered drinks aren't allowed in the practice rooms here."

"Right," said Younghyun, and filed away the information that apparently everyone knew everyone here.

Wonpil laughed at him when Younghyun reported back, safely covered coffees and all.

"Yes, there aren't a lot of us," he said, warming his fingers around his cup and huddling up next to the radiator. "I should've thought of that. Of course everyone would be interested in you. By you."

"Does ..." Younghyun hesitated. "Your classmate, Yehna? Does she ..."

"Oh." Wonpil looked up, eyes wide. "Oh my god, she _is_ _actually_ from the old country!"

"The old country," Younghyun parroted drily.

"Oh, you know what I mean." Wonpil bit his lip. "Oh dear. I don't know how much attention she pays to, uh, you know. You lot. I mean, it's not like you're ... I don't know, Park Ji-sung, are you. How famous _are_ you, anyway?"

"Not," said Younghyun, mildly amused that the most famous Corean to Wonpil was a footballer and not his own cousin, the king. "But I do sometimes get caught in event photographs, if I am escorting Dowoonie."

"Well, I wouldn't fret. It's not like you've got a secret identity or anything."

"No, that's not — I mean, for you."

"Oh. _Oh_." Wonpil laughed, startled. "I didn't even think — well, too late now. And we're all graduating soon, in any case. Almost everyone knows that _harabeoji_ is weirdly posh, anyway, since he came to one of the period chamber concerts in first year."

"Buyeong- _daegam_ ," Younghyun said in Corean for emphasis, "being _posh_ is not weird at all."

Wonpil pouted, then took a big draught of his coffee and stood up. "Stop making sense, I don't like it."

"You don't like it?" Younghyun laughed, tugging teasingly at Wonpil's jean leg. "Oh no, whatever shall I do?"

There was an unfooting lull in their easy conversation, then. Wonpil gazed down at Younghyun with that complicated, tender look that made his stomach feel sloshier than the coffee warranted. Younghyun dropped his hand and looked away, reaching for his laptop.

"Go back to revising, hyung," Wonpil said, soft and gentle. "Break time's over."

*

Even as an aspiring teacher-slash-composer, a public recital was required for Wonpil to graduate. This, as Younghyun and everyone else living in the Belgravia house were all too aware of, consisted of a 20 minute solo piece, and him accompanying Padma for _her_ graduation performance later in the programme.

Everyone had turned up for this — Wonpil's grandparents took the train up from Bognor Regis, his parents took the train in from Reading together with his maternal grandmother, and Yeeun-noona hurried into the box at the very last minute before it was Wonpil's turn to take the stage.

"I had to wait for the break between pieces," she muttered to her mother, who had already started with the hissed _Yeeun-ah_ , _where were you_ recriminations. "The hearing went overtime."

"Yeeunie is so hardworking," said Auntie Hyeyi's mother, and reached down between seats to pat her granddaughter on the shoulder. "Isn't she, Jack-ah?"

The hapless Jack, who stood out like a ginger-topped beacon in this box of dark-haired people (excepting Younghyun, whom it had to be admitted took a perverse delight in highlighting his hair all sorts of colours in the guise of undergraduate-hood), nodded. He was about to probably say something in the affirmative when stage door swung open and Prince Buyeong (quietly) boomed for everyone to quiet, because Wonpilie was here.

"Wonpil, Kim," said one of the jurors down in the stalls into a microphone after some squeaky feedback.

Wonpil, dressed in his recital suit ("Oh, why is this child wearing _that_ suit," muttered Prince Buyeong in irate Corean; "It's his recital suit, _abeoji_ ," replied Uncle Junghoon, "it's a psychological thing."), walked onto stage to some light clapping and cheers. He looked visibly nervous under the stage lights, and bobbed a bow in the direction of the jurors.

"You can do it," Younghyun couldn't help but mutter under his breath.

Propping up the wall next to him was Sergeant Yoon, who gave him a sidelong glance but said nothing else. He was keeping himself busy with scanning the recital hall.

"Come on, Wonpilie," murmured Aunt Hyeyi; she was gripping Uncle Junghoon's arm with one hand and Dowoon's with the other. "Take a breath."

Down on stage, Wonpil took his seat, shook out his fingers in a familiar gesture, and blew his cheeks out in a way that made _both_ Wonpil's grandmothers laugh and Younghyun's heart do that thing where he thought he might be having a bit of an infarction.

"Cute," muttered Jack.

Yeeun-noona bumped her shoulder against his arm.

Wonpil placed his fingers — in that arch shape he'd tried to teach Younghyun — gently on the keys, visibly took a deep breath, and played.

As tended to happen (and as was detrimental to Younghyun actually performing his duty), the world seemed to narrow. The very edges of his vision seemed to press in so that he only saw Wonpil lit from above with his fingers dancing that elegant, mysterious dance along the keys, making a ringing waterfall of notes resonate around the recital hall. His head bobbed in time with the music he was making, and his whole body swayed with the push and pull of the beat.

The thing was — the thing _was_ that Younghyun had heard this played so many times: broken down into sections, pieced together, slowed down, sped up, interpreted in so many ways in the past year, he thought he might recognise the piece even in his sleep. And yet, maybe because of the sublimity of the music, or maybe because of _who_ was creating it, Younghyun found himself caught in its undertow anyway, hostage to the push and pull and call and answer in the music.

He found himself nodding his head to the pulsing heart of the music, like swelling waves rolling onto shore, found himself anticipating passages that had always caught his ear every time he heard Wonpil practise it, and found holding his breath when Wonpil approached a passage that had given him so much trouble his hand had cramped up and had to be kneaded out.

During a cascading series of notes ( _did Wonpil have four hands?_ ), an elbow landed in his side. It was Sergeant Yoon, pulling a subtle face at him.

Younghyun twitched all over and nodded apologetically, tearing his eyes away from the stage. He was forgetting himself — Wonpil was luminous under the stage lights and, in his element, some ineffable quality drew the eye inexorably to him. But he wasn't who Younghyun was here for.

It took considerable effort, but Younghyun managed to stay alert and pay attention to his surroundings for the remainder of Wonpil's performance. All the way 'til the slowing denouement, the river of music now a vast, lazy river meandering out through a silty estuary out to sea. Applause, scattered and hesitant in the start, built quickly in the ringing silence after the last notes, prolonged by what Younghyun now knew was the sustain pedal, faded away.

Clapping hard, Dowoon turned back to beam conspiratorially at Younghyun. "Hyung did it!"

For some reason everyone else in the box saw fit to turn and look at Younghyun when Dowoon did; he felt the smile on his own face freeze under such intense scrutiny.

Next to him, Sergeant Yoon cleared his throat.

"Yes, _pyeha_ ," said Younghyun, doing his best to sound even, " _daegam-mama_ did."

"Oh, it's just family, come on," said Uncle Junghoon jovially, reaching back to pat Younghyun on the forearm.

Captain Choi, also on duty because of the sheer concentration of high-risk individuals in one box, also cleared his throat.

On stage, Wonpil got up from the bench to take his bows

"He's got another one later hasn't he?" Prince Buyeong squinted at the programme notes in the low light.

"Mmm," murmured Auntie Hyeyi. "With his violist friend."

"Very good," said Prince Buyeong, and folded up his programme. "Oh, Kyungsun-ah, have you heard the one about violists?"

Poet Oh — Wonpil's other grandmother — shushed him immediately.

So Younghyun never got to hear the one about the violist.

Accompanying Padma was something that Wonpil had called even more nervewracking than his own recital.

"I can read her pretty well by now, and we've played together for so many thing it's ..." Wonpil had trailed off, then heaved a sigh. "But one feels _such_ responsibility too, you know. When it's someone else's future at stake too."

"Yes," Younghyun had agreed, a little too solemnly.

Into the melancholy silence that followed, Younghyun had rushed to ask — foolishly, if innocently — "But, why can't she just play by herself?"

Younghyun distinctly remembered the way Wonpil had actually replaced the bacon and brie panini in his hands with his face, and the way his shoulders had shaken.

"It's ..." Wonpil had said through his fingers. "It's ... I suppose she could've — but, well, ... oh, hyung, the piece Padma picked is just _nicer_ , all right? "

Here and now, Younghyun finally understood what Wonpil meant.

There was something deeply — the only word that came to mind was _romantic_ , about the slow, stately velvet that Padma was drawing out of her strings. The piece was majestic, and a little melancholy, a sort of stolidly triumphant storytelling that had pain undergirding it. And Wonpil's piano part complemented the viola so well; sometimes he echoed Padma, sometimes he played the same thing or filled in the gaps. It was a conversation, between the soaring viola, sometimes winding, sometimes sweetly simple, and Wonpil's steady, grounding piano accompaniment.

Out of the corner of his eye, Younghyun spotted Sergeant Yoon's head swaying slightly, and smiled to himself.

When the performance was over, Sergeant Yoon leaned discreetly over to him and murmured, "Don't tell anyone, but that was my favourite."

"Which was your least?" Younghyun whispered back, under the cover of applause.

"The... the one before, that was the violin, right? That one."

Younghyun nodded. After Padma's supple, full-bodied viola, it was hard to fall in love with the sound of a solo violin.

Fortunately Padma's was the last of that evening's graduation recitals, and soon Younghyun and his fellow Guards were escorting the Corean royal family out of their box and into the wilds of the RCM's lobby. The portrait-lined hall was filled with families and friends milling about; Younghyun thought he saw the duckling trio somewhere in the mix, converging about the girl who'd played some sort of wind instrument that sounded like a duck, but they quickly disappeared in the shifting mass of bodies.

Essentially: everyone was on high alert. The Guards, for potential threats; the family, keeping an eagle eye out for Wonpil.

Jinyoung appeared out of the crowd abruptly, profusely flowering bouquet in hand and Jaebeom in tow . Hopefully he had taken Younghyun's advice when they'd run into each other at the Hare Krishna food truck outside SOAS. Younghyun had given up on trying to track the swings of their relationship.

"Jinyoungie! You've grown up so much!" Auntie Hyeyi declared, reaching up to pinch his cheeks. "Good to see you looking healthy. Wonpilie's lost weight with all the stress, don't you think?"

"He doesn't eat," Jinyoung agreed, "despite our best efforts."

"Hyung ate lunch today," reported Dowoon. "And had some Twix for tea, according to Padma-noona."

 _Padma-noona_ , Captain Choi mouthed to himself, lips barely moving; the corners of his eyes creased the _tiniest_ bit. Younghyun was in awe.

"At least there's that," said Auntie Hyeyi. "We'll have to feed him properly tonight."

"And who's this?" Uncle Junghoon asked, peering interestedly at Jaebeom.

"Oh, my, uh —"

"O _ho_ ," said Uncle Junghoon, and tapped his nose in a gesture very reminiscent of Prince Buyeong. "Say no more."

Jinyoung, with very evident relief, said no more.

"Where's Sungjin-hyung?" asked Dowoon of Jaebeom, thusly inviting Buyeong's interest. Princess Kyungsun — or rather, Poet Emeritus Oh Kyungsun — had been accosted by a fan of her poetry and Sergeant Ok was attending to her very closely.

"Uh," said Jaebeom, who was probably intimidated by Buyeong's bushy eyebrows. "Somewhere... he said he was only going to make it just in time for Wonpil's set."

"Recital," Jinyoung corrected.

Jaebeom winced and not-looked at Buyeong harder. "Recital."

"He's over there," contributed Younghyun, who'd spotted Sungjin's signature manbun and billowy black clothes across the lobby, together with — "Oh, and he's found Wonpil- _daegam_."

Dowoon gave him a look that Younghyun ignored with hopefully half as much celestially unruffled aplomb as Wonpil's paternal grandmother.

"Hello, hello!" Wonpil managed to say to them when he reappeared from the crowd, already in his spring coat and satchel on, before being thoroughly swept up by the familial parade. Younghyun thought to himself that the way Wonpil had glowed on stage hadn't quite worn off yet; or maybe it was because this was another burden off his shoulders and he was all the more lighter for it.

"Wow," remarked Sungjin, who had come to stand by Younghyun and was staring at Prince Buyeong. "Now _that_ is a _suit_."

Sergeant Yoon coughed again.

At that moment, Prince Buyeong's enthusiastic cry of "Oh but of course your cousin must come along for supper!" carried over the general cacophony in the lobby.

Younghyun felt a keen empathy for the embassy staff and all that they must have to put up with over the years.

"But harabeoji, where are we going?" Wonpil asked before Younghyun or Captain Choi had to.

"Oh!" Prince Buyeong said with an airy wave. "To my embassy rooms — seems the most comfortable for everyone." He turned to Jaebeom, who looked alarmed. "Would you like to come along?"

"Thank you," Jinyoung replied instead, stepping on Jaebeom's foot. "But we're meeting some other friends after this. We just wanted to say congratulations to Wonpilie first."

Agent Shim, who'd been marking Prince Buyeong, sagged a little with relief, and touched a finger to his earpiece to give an update. Younghyun sagged right along with him.

Wonpil hugged Jinyoung goodbye, gave Jaebeom a blank look before shaking his hand (Younghyun had to bite back a laugh), and then said to Sungjin, "Did you talk to _harabeoji_ about his suit? You can if you come along!"

Sungjin, who had been boggling at the entire Kim-nee-Yoon family in their chaotic glory once he'd managed to take his eyes off Buyeong-daegam's clothes, begged off in the politest Corean Younghyun had ever heard from him. Even when he'd first met Dowoon.

"Wow," muttered Dowoon, who clearly had noticed as well.

"Are you jealous?" enquired Younghyun, mouth twitching.

Dowoon gave him a look that said if they weren't in public he'd be trying to elbow Younghyun in the side.

"Stop it, you two." Wonpil, having somehow managed to extract himself from his family, tucked his arm through the crook of Dowoon's offensive elbow. "Come on, we're leaving."

*

"Thank you," Younghyun said quietly to Wonpil much later that evening, when the Kim-nee-Yoons were all arrayed about Prince Buyeong's suite in the embassy.

A buffet had been laid out in the dining room, so the family was scattered between eating at the table in there (the real adults) and wandering about the rooms inspecting the art with slightly tipsy wonder (Jack) or making sure nothing got knocked over (Yeeun-noona, who had her arm threaded through Jack's elbow).

Golden light suited Wonpil best, Younghyun thought recklessly to himself, when Wonpil looked up at him and amber lamplight pooled in the hollows of his collarbones, skimmed the apples of his cheeks.

"What for?" Wonpil kept his voice as quiet.

They were sat in front of the fireplace, just the trio of them. Dowoon was hugging a cushion and had dozed off in a food coma, head cushioned on a stuffed figure; some sort of four-legged Southeast Asian creature patched together from various patterned silk squares.

Younghyun looked down, at where their fingers sat close to each other on the carpet. The spaces between them were like a sharply meandering river. "Asking. About ... this. The venue."

"Oh." Wonpil sounded surprised. "But of course — I didn't want to — you looked so surprised, I thought they couldn't have possibly managed to arrange anything."

"Still." Younghyun smiled up at him. "I appreciate it."

"Kids," said Auntie Hyeri from the dining room doors. There was an unreadable look on her face. "Come and help us finish dessert."

"I'm twenty- _one_ , mother." Wonpil was pouting. "I'm not a kid anymore."

"You'll always be my baby." She turned away, beckoning. "Now come on, they have _moju_."

"Wine?" Wonpil asked Younghyun, confused.

"It's like ... a special drink from Jeonju," Younghyun told him while shaking Dowoon awake. "It's like _sujeonggwa_ , but ...different. A tiny bit alcoholic."

"So it is alcoholic. _Always be my baby_ ," Wonpil repeated sarcastically. "Right."

Younghyun laughed. "I'm sure I also just saw Prince Buyeong open some scotch, if you want something stronger."

"Wonpil-ah! Yeeun-ah!" called Auntie Hyeyi.

"Oh my god, all right. Up, Dowoonie." Wonpil dragged a sleepily confused Dowoon up to his feet with him, and almost fell over. "Mum's calling."

Catching him, Younghyun braced himself against the combined weights of the cousins. "Careful, careful."

"You haven't even drunk anything yet," scoffed Yeeun-noona as she walked past with Jack in tow. "Come on, Pilie."

"It's not —!" Wonpil groaned. "Never mind."

Beaten copper bowls were already filled earthy looking _moju_ when they went into the dining room. Younghyun tried to hang back, but Uncle Junghoon caught him by the elbow and dragged him to the table, pressing one upon him.

"I'm — I'm on duty, _dae—_ -" Younghyun cut himself off at the frown that Uncle Junghoon's face dropped into. "Um, samchon. I really shouldn't be drinking..."

"Didn't stop you from rolling around in front of the fire with Dowoon and Wonpil," observed Yeeun-noona.

"There was no _rolling_!" protested Wonpil.

Yeeun-noona gave him a speaking look that had _both_ Wonpil and Younghyun giving up, and hiding in their bowls of _moju_.

It had to have been brewed by the embassy kitchens; it had the fragrance and viscosity particular to Head Cook Oh's _makgeolli_ , and was rounded out by the sweetness of cinnamon and jujubes, through which cut the hot peppery spice of ginger.

"Oh!" Lifting his lips from his bowl, Wonpil looked up, eyes round and mouth open. "This is _well_ nice. I can't taste any alcohol at all."

"There's very little left in it, Wonpilie," said Poet Oh, who was holding a crystal glass of what was decidedly not _moju_. "This boils for at least a few hours."

"That's good." Wonpil gave his grandmother a sunny smile. "Then I can have more."

"You should, it's good for you," said Prince Buyeong. He picked up the kettle. "Here, have more."

"Ah — there is ice cream too." Auntie Hyeyi held her hand out. "Try it with both .. we put a kettle on the coals to warm..."

"Fusion cuisine," murmured Auntie Hyeyi's mother, who was ensconced in an armchair next to the fireplace and looked most of the way asleep.

"Do you want some, _halmeoni_?" Wonpil asked her, getting halfway up out of his chair.

Younghyun thought suddenly and not without a pang of his own grandparents. He'd have to make it up to Ilsan to visit them over the summer.

"No, no, you have the ice cream. It's too cold for me."

"Okay, _halmeoni_." Wonpil sounded so _sweet_ when he spoke to his grandparents, sweeter than all the desserts in the room combined. "You sleep."

Wonpil took his bowlful of ice-cream and _moju_ and wandered away with Dowoon back to the sitting room, after kissing his grandmother on the cheek. Younghyun made to follow, but was held back again by Uncle Junghoon, who was honestly stronger than he looked. It wasn't that Younghyun wouldn't be able to break his hold; it would just be rude.

"Younghyun-ah, sit with us for a bit," he said, so warmly it unnerved Younghyun. "You don't have to be with Dowoon all the time, you know. Especially in the embassy."

"Yes," said Younghyun, "but ..."

Poet Oh stood up from her chair, then, carrying ... was that _an entire decanter_ of some kind of golden-red-brown liquer?

"Just let them say what they want to you, child," she said. "That way it will pass faster, and you can get back to your friends."

With that, she floated off looking like a very distinguished celestial dancer in Buddhist scroll-paintings of the various heavens. Prince Buyeong remained behind in his chair, spooning warmed _moju_ over his scoop of ice cream, but the look on his face as he watched his wife leave — it made feel Younghyun feel obscurely embarrassed, to have witnessed it.

Looking away, unfortunately, meant that he was caught in Auntie Hyeyi's solemnly expectant gaze.

Slowly, Younghyun sat back down in his chair. "How ... can I ... be of service?" he asked.

"Oh, Younghyun," sighed Auntie Hyeyi. "There's no — no, we want to. Please just think of us as, I don't know, your _chingu_ 's parents, all right?"

Younghyun blinked. "I ... do, auntie."

She gave him a shrewd look. "I'll let it go for now."

"The thing is," said Uncle Junghoon, "we just wanted to check in with you ... since ... well, you are so far away from your parents, after all. How is everything? Uni going all right?"

Younghyun blinked some more, before casting his gaze over to Prince Buyeong desperately.

In response, Prince Buyeong stood up with _his_ bowl, said, "Ah, I must go explain those tapestries to Jack; he must find the brushstrokes so very intriguing," and sallied out.

Thus abandoned, Younghyun replied, "Um, yes? I'm ... you know, averaging two ones. It's fine?"

"Not too stressed, are you?" Uncle Junghoon prodded the tub of ice cream further his way.

Bewildered, Younghyun shook his head. It was all manageable, sort of, and if he was stressed it was in a frog in boiling water way so he didn't really notice. It wasn't more stressful than finishing high school and applying to universities in London _and_ training for the Guards.

Auntie Hyeyi sighed, and moved the ice cream that had been slowly inching over to him out of Uncle Junghoon's reach. At least she seemed to have cottoned on that Younghyun was more partial to savoury treats than sweet.

"It's a lot to ask of a ... a young man, any young man, to work a job full time and complete a degree."

"Well ... a free education at a good university," Younghyun found himself saying, recalling Acing-Captain Song's words from two-and-a-half years agoo, "is a good opportunity in any case."

"But at what cost," murmured Auntie Hyeyi, then louder: "Do you enjoy it? Your course?"

"Uh," said Younghyun, who sometimes still had nightmares about those goddamn demand and supply graphs. "Some parts. But that's normal, I think? I don't know."

They stared at him, seemingly at as much a loss as he. Probably it was easier for them to coax whatever it was they usually wanted to coax out of Wonpil. Younghyun could not believe that Yeeun-noona would allow anything to be drawn from herself, unless she were inclined to it.

"Look," said Uncle Junghoon after an awkward interval during which Younghyun tried to finish his increasingly milky _moju_. "The point is ... the point _is_ , this Guard business."

"Joz!" exclaimed Aunt Hyeyi incomprehensibly.

"This Guard business," repeated Uncle Junghoon, much to Younghyun's discomfort. "You do know it's not — oh, you were just so young, there's no shame in it if you were to —"

Younghyun was already shaking his head and pushing his bowl away from himself. They didn't understand; of course they didn't. There would be every bit of shame, and a heaping of guilt besides.

"I knew what I was signing up for, Uncle," he said quietly.

"I know you've got that oath," said Uncle Junghoon, "you're infamous for it. But really now, it's not ... I mean, is it a legally binding contract? People do leave the Guard."

"You're just so young," Aunt Hyeyi said, "and you've got so much of your life ahead of you."

"I —" Younghyun started, and had to clear his throat. Somehow, the quality of Wonpil's parents' concern felt different from his own parents when they had tried to dissuade him. It made something go funny and sour in his chest. "I'm really all right with it, Uncle. Auntie. It's my honour to look after _pye—_ to look after Dowoonie."

They exchanged looks.

"Whom," Younghyun continued, and pushed his chair back hopefully, "I should really go check on right now."

"Just, think about it, all right?"

Carefully, Younghyun did not shout that it was all he could do _not_ to think about it, in no small part due to their painfully magnetic son. It wasn't like it would help his case now.

Then and there, proving that he was absolutely worth every last drop of Younghyun's fealty, Dowoon leaned in through the door.

"Hyung, we should go back now," he said in distinctly sticky tones. "I'm sleepy and Wonpilie hyung is going to get killed by Yeeun-noona if we don't leave soon. He keeps teasing her."

"Oh, those kids," said Auntie Hyeyi, not sounding particularly bothered.

Rising hastily to his feet, Younghyun ducked his head in a shallow bow. "I'll take my leave now then. Please travel back safely."

Uncle Junghoon opened his mouth, still looking dissatisfied, but then subsided at some unseen signal from Auntie Hyeyi. "You too, kids. And just ... think about what we said, all right?"

Younghyun bobbed his head again and elected to remain silent as he followed Dowoon back over to the fireplace. Wonpil didn't look in any danger; he was curled over a cushion and tracing idle patterns in the carpet. Yeeun-noona and Jack were sitting across from him and looking at something on a phone.

"Look." Wonpil tilted his chin just enough to cast his gaze up at them. Younghyun was distantly grateful that they were surrounded by other people. "The grain makes the colours change if you brush it a different way."

"A true artist," his grandfather boomed benevolently from the sofa, where he was snuggled up with Poet Oh, and made everyone jump. "But I think it is bedtime, eh?"

"How is his hearing so good?" Jack whispered, casting a nervous glance over his shoulder.

"Healthy living," said Prince Buyeong. Next to him, Poet Oh drained her tumbler and laughed.

"Just go with it," Yeeun-noona told Jack, and then they all stood up and the great shuffling goodbyes and congratulatory hugs (again) took place, and finally — finally, they were on their way home.

*

Wonpil fell asleep on Younghyun's shoulder in the car, so deep that he was emitting wheezy little snores. Younghyun was loathe to move Wonpil's head, especially given how exhausted Wonpil had been recently. He deserved every bit of sleep that he managed to get.

In the front seat, which Dowoon had claimed before anyone could say anything, he was also leaning against the door and napping. Thusly rejuvenated when they arrived back at the house, Dowoon slipped out of the door when Sergeant Ok opened it for him and went up the steps. It was he who held their own front door open for Younghyun, holding up a dozy Wonpil.

"Can't believe it's almost all over," Wonpil mumbled into his neck.

"I didn't see you drink anything," Younghyun told him.

"'m just sleepy." Wonpil clung a bit. "Carry me."

Stunned, Younghyun gaped down at his curly head.

"Chakeun-halmeoni slipped hyung a drink on top of the _moju_ ," Dowoon told him, "when samchon and imonim had stolen you away."

Younghyun sighed, and shuffled Wonpil around onto his back. Sergeant Ok, still standing on the stoop, had a carefully blank look on her face.

"Thank you, Sergeant," Younghyun told her. "I think we're good here."

"Good night, Lieutenant," she said, and shut the door on them.

"I'll go shower first, hyung," announced Dowoon, and left.

At least the motions of this were familiar by now — getting a tipsy Wonpil into the bathroom on his floor and then into his pyjamas and thence into bed, all without besmirching anybody's honour or modesty. Without giving into the temptation that tugged at Younghyun, at every turn.

He was turning to leave, the room dark and lit only by the moon shining in through the gaps in the curtains and Wonpil's reading lamp, when Wonpil caught him by the wrist.

"Did you like it?" Wonpil asked, mostly to his pillow. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes." Younghyun didn't understand still, even after two years, just how one person could have this much power over the speed of the blood in his arteries. "I — you were incredible, Wonpilie."

"Good," murmured Wonpil, face softening further. "I ..." but whatever else he was going to say next was lost to sleep as he mumbled some nonsense and his grip loosened.

*

After that, the end of the year seemed to rush up again. It was the most disorienting deja-vu to stand in the vestibule with the luggage and Wonpil slender and sleepy in his arms.

"I'll miss you. Stay in touch," murmured Wonpil. "Are we going halfsies on Dowoonie's birthday present again?"

Younghyun nodded and tried not to do anything too bizarre like stick his nose into the warm hollow behind the hinge of Wonpil's jaw. "Pick something interesting in Spain."

"I'll get him flamenco shoes. _Tap tap tap_ ," Wonpil half-giggled, half-yawned, before disentangling himself. "Dowoonie, come here for one last hug."

Dowoon went willingly, even as he said, "It's not like this is the last you'll see of us, hyung."

Younghyun winced.

"It will be for a _while_ ," Wonpil countered, mouth twisting as he accidentally caught Younghyun's eye. He squeezed Dowoon hard. "Got to store it all up."

"See you next year, hyung," Dowoon promised.

"See you," Younghyun echoed, trying very hard not to think about the fact that their penultimate year in London, of their time with Wonpil, was drawing to a close.

They left the same way too — Wonpil waving from the door and Dowoon twisted around to wave back.

"One last time," said Younghyun as they passed out of sight of the house.

Dowoon seemed to know what he meant, his face drawing tight momentarily. "We'll just have to have Wonpilie-hyung come to the airport with us next year, then."

"Yeah." Younghyun leaned his forehead against the glass, looking at London blurring by. "That sounds good."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
>   * the whole scene-chewing section where Younghyun hangs out at the RCM is ENTIRELY inspired by [this one gif](https://img1.daumcdn.net/thumb/R1280x0/?scode=mtistory2&fname=https://k.kakaocdn.net/dn/mnja9/btqEm2SSiQJ/zjmOhRb4W6dZE23jwwR8s1/img.gif). 
>   * I don't know for sure what piece Wonpil played but it's probably Romantic. 
>   * Padma's pieces ... I had a few candidates, but was mostly listening to [Vieuxtemps's Viola Sonata in B Flat Major](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVMfR9URHs) whilst writing that bit. 
> 

> 
> WELL. Year 2 of this behemoth is over! I hope it has ended on an appropriately ... I don't know, YOU let me know what kind of note this ended on for you! 
> 
> Whoever's soldiered on through all 40k+ of Year 2, I appreciate you so much. Please ~~like~~ kudos, comment, and ~~subscribe~~ [retweet](https://twitter.com/forochel/status/1330033164471971842)! Year 3 is in the works, but I will probably take a break to go write YP in other settings.


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